Dust to Dust
by kimbuhlay
Summary: AU/AH. After the death of his ex-girlfriend, Damon Salvatore struggles to navigate the twisted, winding path of grief. His classmate, Elena, is determined to support him along the way, whether he likes it or not. Five-part short story.
1. Denial

**A/N: Hello, lovely readers. I'm back again, as promised! Hope you're all having a great start to 2014 so far.  
**

**I'd like to take a moment to advise you that this story touches upon the issue of teenage suicide. Some may find that it hits a little close to home, and if you feel uncomfortable with the topic, this story may not be for you. I encourage you all to remember that suicide is never the answer, and there is help available at various organizations across the world should it ever become an option. **

**I want to thank two people for their invaluable contributions to this fic: firstly, Lucy, for beta-reading the entire thing in one night and just generally being a wonderful person with brilliant ideas; secondly, Jenn (ElvishGrrl), for allowing me to rant on and on for several weeks and offering insight and encouragement. I'd also like to thank the shitty wifi in a cheap Parisian hotel room that bored me to the point of rewriting a half-assed original fiction attempt into something presentable. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own TVD or its characters or the song _Dust to Dust_ by The Civil Wars; all rights to their respective owners.**

* * *

**DENIAL**

_It's not your eyes  
__It's not what you say  
__It's not your laughter  
__That gives you away  
__You're just lonely  
__You've been lonely, too long_

_Oh, your acting, your thin disguise  
__All your perfectly delivered lines  
__They don't fool me  
__You've been lonely, too long_

**ELENA**

Katherine Pierce.

There was a time when her name was mentioned more than any other in the hallways of Mystic Falls High School.

Always attached to a scandalous rumor – _did you hear that Katherine Pierce once snorted cocaine with male model Connor Owens? Did you hear that Katherine Pierce was cast as an extra in the new Klaus Mikaelson movie? Did you hear that Katherine Pierce went to Argentina last summer and slept with three guys at the same time?_

Where she walked – or rather, stalked – people scuttled backwards in their haste to get out of her way. She walked with the kind of self-assured presence and grace you'd expect from repeat Oscar winners. She deserved an Oscar for the performance she gave, anyway, but the only trophy she's receiving today is one of cold, heavy stone.

Her hair was always in those perfect ringlets, no matter how many times she tossed them in scorn at the freshmen that had the _audacity_ to sit at _her_ table in the cafeteria. Her make-up was flawless, as if a team of professionals flocked around her at all hours of the day to make sure she always looked fresh. _Did you hear that Katherine Pierce hired an assistant to pose as a student here, just to make sure she always looks her best?_

She wore the latest fashions, imported from Europe – all the best designers, for of course, no cent is spared when it comes to ensuring Oliver Pierce's precious daughter is dressed to impress.

One couldn't help but wonder why a girl with the world falling at her feet was stuck in Mystic Falls, Virginia, of all places. Perhaps as the stars shine brightest when the lights below them are dim, Oliver believed his daughter would flourish in a mundane town where people lived ordinary lives – where she would have no competition.

The cool exterior she maintained in public made it apparent that everyone and everything bored her. In fact, the only person who ever managed to hold her interest for longer than a few minutes was Damon Salvatore, a guy who matched her in looks, reputation, and ice-cold personality. The term 'power couple' doesn't even _begin_ to describe the indestructible force they were together.

The only people who knew what went wrong between them were Katherine and Damon themselves, and one of them is about to be buried six feet into the earth.

One thing's for sure – up until four days ago, anybody from our nowhere, shit-boring, one-horse town would have sworn to any journalist until they're blue in the face that they know the real Katherine Pierce.

I'm not going to lie. I did not know Katherine Pierce.

As a matter of fact, I don't think anybody ever did.

Katherine Pierce.

Nobody dares to even _whisper_ the name anymore.

* * *

I've always loathed funerals.

The earliest one I can recall was Grandpa Gilbert's, when I was six years old. I'd barely known him, and in an effort to avoid unfamiliar, grieving relatives, I'd ducked into a side room and come face to face with his open casket.

There's a certain chill in the air you can't shake from cemeteries, even in broad daylight in the middle of June. A small crowd of people gathers around a rectangular pit as the dark mahogany coffin is carried toward it and laid gently alongside, like a sick puzzle piece just waiting to be slotted into place. The air reeks of soil and too-sweet flowers, and the only sound is of Caroline Forbes sobbing quietly into her companion's shoulder.

Katherine's parents stand as far away from each other as they possibly can, both faces blank and empty, Diana's partially covered with a black veil. Then, of course, what remains of Katherine's posse: just Caroline and Vicki Donovan. For the most popular girl in Mystic Falls, her funeral is surprisingly devoid of people.

There's a priest, of course, and Caroline's mother, the sheriff, and the school principal with a solemn expression on his face.

And then there's me. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing here, for I was neither friend nor family of Katherine. I haven't attended a funeral since I was thirteen and burying my parents, but I woke up today and knew I should be here, that it would be the right thing to do.

A lone figure appears by a tree about thirty feet away, leaning against it like he could blend in with the rough bark and traitorously bright green leaves. He doesn't come any closer, and I don't blame him. I have my suspicions about what went down between them in the spring, but if I know Damon half as well as I think I do, he'd never let his girlfriend of two years be buried without showing up to say his final goodbyes, no matter how spectacularly their relationship crashed and burned.

I've known Damon Salvatore since the first grade, but it wasn't until high school that we became… not friends, exactly, but more acquainted with each other. Of course, up until this past year I always thought he was a bit of an entitled dick, but being partnered together in AP English literature showed me a completely different side of him. Though we were not paired by choice, it was surprisingly easy to establish a routine of meeting a couple of times a week – at the library or a coffee shop or at my house, _never_ his – to study or discuss our latest read or test each other in preparation for our next pop quiz. By an unspoken understanding, we rarely talked about anything personal… at least, not until May thirteenth.

As it's evident that nobody else will be joining us, the priest begins a cookie-cutter service in a hollow monotone, punctuated only by Caroline's sniffs and light coughs.

I tune out, fixing my eyes on that box that was slightly smaller than those which had contained my parents five years ago. A tight coil of grief constricts itself around my insides, my lungs, my throat. Heat burns behind my eyes until the tears fall, some for Miranda and Grayson Gilbert and some for this girl whom I barely knew, mixing together as they race down my cheeks. Katherine was no angel, no saint, but she deserves more than a handful of loved ones to pay their last respects – she deserved more than a grave before her nineteenth birthday.

Katherine's parents decline to say anything, so the box is slowly lowered into the ground and the mourners turn away as the first shovelfuls of dirt hit the wood.

"Ironic, isn't it?" a voice spits bitterly from behind me; I don't need to look around to know whose it is. "Her entire life was a show and everybody was a spectator. Every party she ever threw had to be a bigger deal than the last. She'd have preferred no funeral at all to this generic, boring bullshit."

"Would she, though?" I ask quietly, turning to face him, and he stares at me in disbelief.

"Are we talking about the same girl here? About five foot six; long brown curls; craved attention?"

"You and I both know that wasn't always true."

"I have a hard time deciding what was the truth and what was merely an illusion when it comes to her, Elena."

He is angry; he's earned the right to be angry. It partially covers the pain and sadness swimming in his bright blue eyes as he continues to watch the gravedigger carry out his morbid task. _I have to get him out of here before he snaps._

"Do you want to go grab a coffee or something?"

He stares at me and for a moment I fear he might laugh, or scream, or both, but he gives me a curt nod and follows me along the flagstone footpath, away from the suffocating atmosphere of a garden full of dead people.

We walk in total silence, taking our seats in our usual booth at the Coffee Corner. I order us two cappuccinos as he stoically stares at his fists on the table, clasped so tightly in front of him that his knuckles are turning white. I sip my drink and wait patiently for him to say something, knowing that if I rush him he's more likely to direct his emotions at me. Finally, when the froth from my coffee is all that's left in the cup, he speaks.

"Why her?"

"Why anybody?" I counter, absently playing with the empty sugar packet and tearing it into smaller pieces with my fingernails.

"It's my fault," he says softly, ashamedly. I look up sharply to meet his eyes.

"You didn't kill her-"

"I may as well have!"

We breathe heavily now, staring at each other.

"I should have seen it."

"Anybody should have seen it, but they didn't, because she didn't want them to."

"I _knew_ her, Elena-"

"Did you?" I exclaim, my voice rising.

"I could have prevented it."

I take a deep breath, clasping my hands together tightly under the table so he can't see. "The first day I met her, I was eight, and she was nine."

"I'm not going to sit here while you take a stroll down memory lane-"

"My father was a divorce lawyer, a reputable one, and her parents wanted the details of their split to remain private, at least in its earlier stages, so they travelled all the way from Los Angeles to have their situation resolved."

"Is there a point to this touching recollection?" he asks snidely, taking a large mouthful of his now-lukewarm coffee.

"My mother told me to take Katherine outside and show her the garden, the tree house, the swing set, et cetera. Of course, I stood in front of this little girl with her perfect brown curls all dressed up like a doll, and I had no idea what to say. She eyed my simple jeans and sweater with distaste and then turned back to watch through the glass as the discussion between her parents got increasingly heated. Her face remained completely impassive the whole time, even when the shouting and profanity became audible and her mother slapped her father across the face.

Eventually, I dragged her away, but she still said nothing. Even _I_ felt like crying, and she was completely disinterested, glancing around the backyard with a sigh. It was like she was completely emotionless, empty."

"Elena, I'm going to leave right now if you don't-"

"So I asked her, 'Katherine, why do your parents hate each other so much?' And she shrugged her tiny shoulders, and answered, 'Everybody has to hate something.'"

The words have haunted me ever since I got that phone call from Damon early Tuesday morning, and now I know they are echoing in his head too, as he stares at me, speechless.

"We all should have seen it, Damon. We _all_ should have seen how much she hated _herself_."

* * *

**DAMON**

_I stand in the men's restroom at the Grill, leaning my weight against the counter and shaking violently with anger. I can feel it radiating from me, from every pore, sucking the air out from around me and making it difficult to breathe. I can barely see straight, watching the drips from the faucet slowly, inevitably fall onto the porcelain and travel down to the drain, slipping away, one by one._

_My rage, however, sticks to me, toxic, scorching, suffocating. _

_I storm out, flinging the door open and feeling satisfied with the heavy, resounding slam that causes people to stop and stare at me._

_"What's your problem?" I snarl at some punk kid and his girlfriend as I stalk past._

_"Damon?" _

_I whirl around at the tentative voice and see my classmate, Elena, gazing at me, wide-eyed. "What do you want?" I snap._

_"Is everything okay?"_

_I scoff at the question. "Does it look like it is?"_

_She says nothing, only motioning for me to join her at her booth. She's alone, but the empty glasses and plates on the table indicate that her friends have already left. Reluctantly, I drop onto the seat across from her._

_"Talk to me, Damon."_

_"What would you like me to say?"_

_"Lose the sarcasm," she says firmly. "I'm trying to help you."_

_"I don't want your help," I scowl._

_"Then why are you still here?"_

_I don't have an answer for her, so I settle for idly spinning the empty glass in front of me for something to do with my hands._

_"Look, I don't know what's made you so angry, but sometimes it helps to talk about it before you do something you regret."_

_"I don't want to talk about it."_

_"Then we can talk about something else?" she offers._

_"No, thanks."_

_She sighs heavily and lowers her voice. "When my parents died, I was furious: at them, at the other driver, at myself, even though I had nothing to do with it. I was in junior cheerleading at the time, so one night, after practice, I stayed back, and I channeled all of my pent-up anger into running. I just did laps of the track, as fast as I could, running until I'd completely exhausted myself. By the time I was done, I could barely remember why I was angry in the first place. So that's what I do, even now. I just go for a run whenever I need to wear myself out, whether I'm angry or stressed or sad or whatever."_

_I don't respond to her, fighting the urge to look up and see the pain in her eyes as she shares this with me._

_"You can talk to me, Damon," she pushes again, but I slam my hands onto the table, standing up abruptly._

_"I was never here," I say icily, deliberately looking straight above her head as I address her._

_And I'll never admit it to her, but after I leave the Grill, I walk to the Timberwolves' football field and run laps for another three hours._

* * *

I storm into my bedroom, slamming the door behind me so hard that the entire house shakes. This must all be some kind of sick joke. There is no way I could have attended my ex-girlfriend's funeral today. I must be dreaming.

Fucking Elena Gilbert and her heartfelt emotional speeches.

I press my fists into my eyelids in an attempt to drive out the image of her innocent, wide brown eyes and groan in frustration when they're replaced with Katherine's instead, also brown but with a hint of green and a dark and dangerous spark in them.

I hear a light knock at the door and scowl as the doorknob turns.

"Leave me alone, Dad."

"It's me." My saintly younger brother sticks his head around the door, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Just wanted to see how you were doing."

"I'm fine, Stefan. Now fuck off."

"You're obviously not _fine_."

"Oh, believe me, I am."

"I know you went to the service." Of course, a certain brunette little birdy must be chirping her way around the friendship circle.

"Have you been speaking to Elena?"

Stefan's brow furrows. "No. Should I?"

I roll my eyes in exasperation. "No! For God's sake, is it so hard for all you little do-gooders to believe that I can cope on my own?"

"You shouldn't have to be on your own, Damon. You lost someone you cared about."

"I _used_ to care about," I spit scathingly. "Not anymore. Not after what she did."

"Which you still won't talk about, to anybody."

"It's in the past. Katherine and I were over."

Stefan's eyes light up with the triumphant look he gets every time he thinks he's won an argument. "So if you were so over her, why'd you go to her funeral?"

"Somebody had to. There were less people there than there were people awake at your last piano recital. Maybe I felt sorry for her."

"At least you're admitting you felt something."

"I'm not here for your psycho-analysis, Steffy. Contrary to what you all seem to think, I'm not about to go bat-shit crazy, okay? I dated her. We ended it. I got over it. She died. There's nothing more to say."

He hesitates, but clearly has no more inspirational nonsense to spout at me. "Well, if you do think of something, you'll come to me, right? I know we don't do that sentimental, sharing stuff, but I'm here for you. If not me, Elena, or somebody, okay?"

"You make it sound like she's my fucking girlfriend."

"Well, she's your _something_."

"Get lost," I growl, irritated. He leaves, quietly closing the door behind him, and I'm struck by the difference between us. If he were in my situation right now, he'd probably be crying on his friends' shoulders and making plans to build some shrine to Katherine in the hallways of the high school.

My phone lights up, and I see it's a text from Elena.

_I'm here if you need to vent._

My _something_, Stefan called her. I don't feel anything for her but mild annoyance.

Elena is not my girlfriend. Katherine was, and she died, and I don't care.

End of story.

* * *

**A/N: Thank you for reading! Expect the next chapter over the weekend if I haven't melted in the continuous 40C+ weather before then. If you want to talk about Disney's _Frozen_, salt and vinegar chips, or our favourite fictional couple's award-winning chemistry, I can be found on twitter at ohmyninadobreva. **


	2. Anger

**A/N: Thank you so much for the wonderful response to the first chapter. You guys never cease to amaze me and brighten my day with your kind words. I know this isn't a typical love story - I wanted to push the boundaries of my comfort zone, and I'm relieved that you seem to be enjoying it, despite the less-than-fluffy subject matter. Rest assured, though, because Damon and Elena's love conquers all, and we have the awards to prove it!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own TVD or its characters or the song _Dust to Dust_ by The Civil Wars; all rights to their respective owners.**

* * *

**ANGER**

_Let me in the wall  
You've built around  
We can light a match  
And burn it down  
Let me hold your hand  
And dance 'round and 'round the flames  
In front of us  
Dust to dust_

**DAMON**

I can't really remember the last two days.

On Saturday night, after my argument with Stefan, I found a bottle of expensive bourbon, half-empty, that Katherine had stolen from her father once while we were still dating. I promptly drank my way to the bottom of it and that's the last thing that's clear in my head.

The next thing I know, it's four in the morning on Monday, and I'm lying on the floor of my bedroom in a torn shirt that reeks of stale sweat and cheap wine with a pounding headache and a dull pain in my chest.

I shower, throw up twice, and shower again, and the whole time, that stupid glass bottle stares at me mockingly from its perch of honor on my desk.

I press a button on my phone, but it bleats feebly at me before the battery dies. As it's charging, I see three missed calls and four texts from my favorite busybody English partner.

_How are you holding up?_

_Please let me know you're okay._

_Why aren't you answering my calls?_

_Damon?_

I delete each one with a dark scowl. I don't know why she won't just give up.

I start quietly tidying up the mess that I've made. The floor is sticky from spilled liquor and I open the window to get rid of the god-awful smell. This is why I prefer to sneak into bars for my drink – you can do what you like and still come home to a vomit-free bed to sleep in and not have to worry about cleaning up afterward.

I knock over a bottle by accident and cringe, waiting for the sound of my father's footsteps in the hallway. He's been unusually tolerant of me since we heard about Katherine, but he has some important meeting today and if I wake him I may as well book myself a plot beside her. Luckily for me, the house remains as silent as a creaky old nineteenth-century boarding house can be.

My phone buzzes from the nightstand and I glance at it in surprise, wondering who else is up at this unearthly hour.

_I'm worried about you. _

_Don't be_, I send back, regretting it the second my phone lights up as she calls me.

"What are you doing awake?" she demands in a hushed voice.

"I could ask you the same thing."

She's quiet for a moment.

"What do you want, Elena?"

"I couldn't sleep, okay? Stefan told me you weren't doing so well and I just wanted to make sure you hadn't done anything stupid."

"Like swallowing the entire contents of my family's medicine cabinet?" I snap, and I hear Elena's tiny, shocked intake of breath, and it infuriates me just _that_ much more. "Why, because that's what _she_ did?"

"Don't say it like that-"

"Why not? Why pretty it up with hollow words to conceal the sinister meaning; why make it sound like something it's not? That's all she did, Elena. She popped some pills and waited to die. It was easy for her, and we're the ones left to deal with the shit-storm in her wake."

"Damon, you're scaring me-"

"Because I'm stating the facts?"

"No, because you're starting to sound just like _she_ did."

It takes me a moment to absorb her meaning. "When?" I hiss.

"Damon-"

"When did you talk to her?" My voice rises and I struggle to keep myself from shouting, remembering I can't afford to wake my dad. I can hear the tears behind Elena's words.

"May thirteenth."

My fury burns white-hot as it builds up behind my eyes, in my throat, around the tightness in my chest. "What did she say to you?"

"You don't want to hear it right now, Damon-"

"Elena Gilbert, I swear to _fucking-"_

"Okay! Okay. She said she wished things were simpler, that there was some magical, easy way to just make everything… stop."

I change my mind. I don't want to hear this. I remember May thirteenth; I don't think I could forget a single thing about that day. It's branded in my memory forever.

"Well, Elena, you have nothing to worry about. I'm not going to kill myself tonight. So, why don't you hang up the phone, climb back into bed, and _mind your own fucking business_."

"Wait! There's something you should know."

I roll my eyes. "Spare me from your childish guessing games."

"Vicki Donovan was arrested yesterday."

I fail to see how this could possibly be the one thing I missed during my thirty-six hour binge that I would care about. "Let me guess: solicitation?" I say sarcastically.

"For illegally distributing prescription medication."

My witty comeback dies in my throat as I realize the implications of what she's saying; being Elena Gilbert, she feels the need to spell it out for me, regardless.

"They ran some tests, and they were a match. Vicki sold Katherine the drugs she used to kill herself."

The last noise Elena hears on her end of the line is the shattering of that stupid, taunting bourbon bottle fragmenting into tiny, irreparable shards, just like the remnants of my sanity.

* * *

The rhythm of my feet pounding into the pavement melds with with the pulse of my heartbeat until I can't tell them apart. The sky is just starting to lighten with the promise of dawn, and I fight down the bile that rises in my throat at a memory of watching the sun rise just a few short months ago, with Katherine by my side after partying all night long. Everything was fine, everything made sense, and if someone had told me then that things would be the way they are now, I'd have laughed in their face.

I don't remember my mom clearly, but there are a few things she used to say often that stuck with me after she left. One of them was that if you were angry at somebody, you should write them a letter, and when you're done, you rip it up and throw it away, and it makes your anger disappear. She'd told me that after Stefan had broken one of my favorite toys, so I'd written him a short and poorly spelt note, torn it up, and still felt angry, so I then hit him and he cried and I was punished for it. I don't think I've ever been one to deal with emotion very well.

My destination looms up ahead, the red brick looking dark and foreboding in the half-light. I slow down, weighing up my options.

Though my upbringing was far from archetypal, and my love for the wild life has landed me in hot water countless times, I've never been charged with a crime and thus never spent more than an overnight sobering up in a holding cell. Due to my inebriated state during these times, my memory of the interior of the sheriff's office is foggy at best.

After pacing around the walls, I spot the barred windows of the holding area. The next window along has frosted glass, but seems unobstructed, so I establish it to be the bathroom. I correctly assume that the alarms of the sheriff's department would not be activated by somebody trying to break _in_, so it's almost too simple for me to smash the window, unlock it, and let myself in.

It's too dark for me to see very well, so I peer into cell after to cell to find Vicki. Most are empty, and one or two contain a drunken Mystic Falls resident who just wasn't lucky enough last night.

Finally, there she is, huddled against the wall, sweating and deathly pale like she's coming down from a high. She looks thin, her hair is wet and stuck to her skin, and her clothes are dirty and tattered, a far cry from how she looked during senior year, trying with every bone in her body to be an exact clone of Katherine.

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen," I snarl, and she jolts in fear, looking around her cell as if she thought she was hallucinating. _Hell, for all I know she could be_.

"How _dare_ you," I whisper, and her eyes find me and widen in terror. She cowers against the far wall as if she believes I can get through iron bars and get my hands around her throat. "How dare you drag her down to your level? Katherine _never_ touched that prescription shit in her life. How could you sell it to her?"

Vicki doesn't say anything, rubbing absently at the red marks on her wrists from the handcuffs.

"How does it feel to know you were the one who killed her? You called her your friend, and it's _your_ fault she'd dead."

She's too out of it to concentrate on what I'm saying and her lack of reaction angers me until my rage is boiling over. The words gush forth of their own accord, accusations and curses and threats, and no matter how loudly I scream, she still remains listlessly slumped against the wall-mounted bench. I punch the brick where the cell wall ends, ignoring the resultant pain, and punch again, but my anger does not recede. My throat is hoarse from shouting and the light flicks on; I hear the door open behind me, a vaguely familiar voice saying my name, but I still grasp those iron bars like I can bend them by sheer will so I can get to her, force her to look me in the eye, force her to hear me.

Somebody grabs my arm, and I shrug them off, but they try again, and again. It takes several people to pull me away, twisting my arm behind my back and wrestling me to the ground.

My vision is blurred, but I see her head turn slowly towards me, her eyes strangely blank, but she has tear tracks through the dirt on her face.

It's only then that I realize I'm crying, too.

* * *

**ELENA**

_Tick… tick… tick…_

I throw the cheap plastic wall clock a scathing look. I've been sitting in the waiting room of the sheriff's office for what feels like hours, and I've bitten my nails off all the way to my fingertips and have now started pacing in an unsuccessful attempt soothe my anxiety.

I called Stefan the second Damon hung up on me, but by the time he woke up and answered, it was too late and Damon had already jumped out his window and disappeared. We got the phone call from Liz Forbes just as the sun was beginning to rise, saying that Damon had broken into the holding area where Vicki was locked up and started screaming at her through the bars, refusing to calm down until he was overpowered by the deputies. Blessedly, Liz was very understanding of the situation and agreed not to press charges, seeing as Damon was under intense emotional stress and hadn't physically assaulted anybody.

Now, we're just waiting for them to process his paperwork so we can take him home.

Stefan's eyes lift to the door behind me and he stands, apprehensive. I whirl around and my heart drops at the sight before me.

He's unshaven, red-eyed, and bloody-knuckled from where he's clearly had an altercation with a solid wall. I'd expected him to look guilty, defeated, but he just stares blankly at the ground, his fists clenched tightly at his sides and his lip split where he's bitten down on it in rage.

Sherriff Forbes touches him lightly on the shoulder, but he shrugs her off. "Damon, please don't let this happen again. I understand that you're going through a rough time right now, and it's not a bad thing to need someone to talk to. If you like, I can recommend a grief counselor?"

"No thanks," he scowls, and I see the concern in Stefan's face change to a glare.

"Okay, then," Liz says, looking hesitant. "Take care, Stefan, Elena." She nods to us and I thank her one last time before we leave, walking in stony silence towards Stefan's car.

I'm flanked by either brother and I can feel the anger radiating off of both of them, knowing it won't take long for one to crack and hoping I won't get caught in the crossfire when they do. Sure enough, Stefan clears his throat and stops.

"What the _hell_, Damon?"

Damon says nothing, merely shrugging his shoulders with a dark smirk in answer.

"I get that you're hurting, but this is ridiculous. I refuse to deal with your shit anymore, not until you're ready to start dealing with it yourself. I can't grieve on your behalf, Damon, and I'm tired of making excuses for you. You can walk your sorry ass home. Elena?" Stefan glances expectantly at me, his hand on the door handle.

"No, it's okay. I'll walk," I say softly.

"You sure?"

I nod silently, and Stefan jumps into his car and speeds away without another word.

Damon looks up, and it's the first time he's made eye contact with me. "I don't need your pity."

"Good. I'm not giving it to you," I shoot back at him. He stares at me for a moment, like he's calculating something, and then he turns to walk and I follow alongside him, waiting for him to speak.

"I'm sorry about this morning." His cracked, tired voice is so quiet I might have imagined it, and I certainly wasn't expecting the first thing to come out of his mouth to be an apology of any sort.

"You're forgiven."

We walk another ten minutes, ambling slowly through the quiet streets. It's still too early for many people to be about, and I'm relieved that Damon doesn't have to endure the looks and whispers of our small-town neighbors, too curious for their own good.

"Talk to me, Damon."

"What makes you think I want to?"

"Because if you didn't, you'd have told me to get in the car with your brother. Probably with a few more expletives than that," I add, and the corners of his mouth lift slightly.

"Not here," he says, after a beat.

"My place?" I suggest. "My aunt's left for work already and Jeremy's at summer camp." The lie falls from my lips effortlessly. Damon doesn't need to know the specifics of the 'summer camp' program in which my brother 'enrolled'.

He nods, and we take a left down Redwood Street, cutting through a playground to get to Maple. Soon enough, I've let us into the house, offered him some clean paper toweling and cold water for his hands, and made him a coffee.

Again, I wait patiently for him to speak, knowing not to rush him.

"You saw her that night." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes, I did. After I spoke to you."

He pauses to process this. "Did she tell you what happened?"

"Not outright, but I probably wouldn't be far off if I guessed."

"She fucked Mason Lockwood."

My heart sinks for him and I watch carefully, ready for him to explode.

"I just wanted to surprise her. I was going to make dinner, and I didn't think she was home, so I just let myself in with the spare key she gave me… heard noises and walked into her bedroom to see her wrapped naked around _Mason Lockwood_, of all people."

I'm speechless. It's a well-known fact that Mason is Damon's arch-nemesis and has been since the very first day they met. Mason had beaten up Stefan in elementary school and gotten away with it, as his father was on the school board, so despite being a year younger, Damon had taken him on and been suspended for a week as a result. Subconsciously, I reach across the table to place my hand over his in comfort.

"So I ignored all her stupid protests and got the hell out of there, hating Mason for stealing my girl, hating her for betraying me, hating myself for believing she could actually care about someone other than herself. I still hate her, even now. I hate her for not telling me about whatever shit it was that made her kill herself. I hate her for being such a coward and taking the easy way out."

"But you still care, Damon."

"That's the worst part of it!" His voice is loud, but the agony is his eyes is deafening. "I can't _stop_ caring. After everything she did, after all the ways she hurt me without ever giving a fuck about me, I still care that she died, and I _hate_ that I care." He stands up abruptly, dropping my hand, the chair shooting backwards, his chest heaving as he leans on the table. He slams his fist against the dark wood once, and I flinch, noting the way his eyes follow me with regret he can't bear to voice.

"You still love her," I murmur, finally seeing _him_, his _pain._ "You love her even though she betrayed you in the worst possible way."

"I would have moved on." He sinks back into the seat, running his hand through his hair as he takes a deep breath. "If she hadn't died, I would've gotten over it, eventually. But of course, she had to go complicate everything, because she was Katherine Pierce, and it dragged it all back up again. I'm so fucking _angry_ that she could still mess with my head, even after our relationship was over."

He's still panting like he's just run a race, and he looks up at me, slowly, his gaze burning into mine.

"And then there's you."

_Me?_

"Why are you angry with _me_?"

"You got inside of my head, somehow. My girlfriend cheated on me and the first person I find myself talking to is _you_; she dies and the first person I call is _you_. And now I find out she talked to _you_ that night… god, why are you always interfering? Why are you always just… _there_?"

"Damon…" I whisper, unable to think of anything to defend myself, anything to calm him down. He stares at me coldly across the table, all the vulnerability in his eyes now hidden beneath layers of twisted rage, buried under the debris that came crashing down when she broke his heart, and I instinctively shrink back from him. "Damon, _please_."

Wordlessly, he gets up, slowly and deliberately setting his empty cup in the sink and stalking toward to the front door. I follow him helplessly, unsure of what to do or say.

"And Elena?" He turns back to me as he stands in the threshold, silhouetted against the open doorway, his voice icy. "Don't bother calling anymore."

He leaves, slamming the door behind him, and I sink to my knees.

Unable to help myself, I dissolve into tears.

* * *

**A/N: It's early on Monday here already, but I hope you all have/had a wonderful weekend. Now, I shall sleep, and thank my lucky stars that I only have to work at midday today. Thank you for reading! **


	3. Bargaining

**A/N: Happy Australia Day, everybody (well, technically it's past midnight here, but whatever)! Hope you all made it through the 100th episode unscathed. I love Katherine, so my feelings on the matter are mixed, but how great was it to see Alaric and Jenna and Elijah and even Vicki and John again?! I was in tears, honest tears (actually, I'm writing this author's note in advance, so the episode just aired, and I'm still not over it). I'm uploading this from my phone while away on holiday, so I hope it works okay. **

**Now, onto the matter at hand. Thank you so much for all your reviews and favourites and alerts in the past week. Congratulations to Jessjunky and Scarlett2112 for being the first to pick up on the chapter titles; I was wondering how long it would take for somebody to catch on! So, yes, the chapters are structured and titled deliberately after the five stages of grief in the Kübler-Ross model. It was the idea I built the story around, after I made the decision to turn it into fanfiction. I hope you enjoy stage three: Bargaining.  
**

**I just wanted to clarify one thing, and it's my fault that this wasn't more explicitly stated: Katherine did not commit suicide on May 13th, the same night she was caught cheating. There was a period of a few weeks between the breakup and her death; the timeline picked up with the funeral in mid-June. I'm sorry for any confusion, and I'll try to clear up the issue when I have time to revise the earlier chapters.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own TVD or its characters or the song _Dust to Dust_ by The Civil Wars; all rights to their respective owners.**

* * *

**BARGAINING**

_You've held your head up  
__You've fought the fight  
__You bear the scars  
__You've done your time  
__Listen to me  
__You've been lonely, too long_

**ELENA**

After hours of pointless staring at the blank page of my notebook, I huff in annoyance and look desperately around my room for some inspiration. I've always loved writing, but for the past few weeks, I've been unable to craft a single sentence. Instead, my mind keeps wandering to Damon, and subsequently, Katherine, and I'm too lost in my memories of the one real conversation I had with her to concentrate any longer.

Exasperated, I slam my book closed and switch on my ceiling fan to get some air circulating in here. The heat has been unforgiving for the past few days, rarely dropping below ninety degrees until late at night, with the humidity making leaving the house almost intolerable. It's the fourth of July, but I don't feel much like partying, even though the rest of Mystic Falls is braving the mid-afternoon sun for the national holiday.

Today only serves to remind me of what I've lost, and I'm not too keen on celebrating that.

When I was younger, my family used to spend the week of July fourth at our lake house. Jeremy and I would go fishing and boating on the lake with Dad, and at night we'd climb up on the roof with Mom and she'd point out all the constellations and tell us stories about them until we fell asleep.

After they died, Jenna offered to take us to the lake house, but we all agreed it didn't feel right. Instead, we'd spend a few hours at the annual town fair and then retreat to our home, watch the fireworks together, maybe reminisce about how our lives used to be before death tore them apart.

_Poor Damon_, I sigh to myself. I've had years to grieve the deaths of my parents and the pain still burns as fresh as if it were yesterday. Damon's had a matter of weeks, and he's still alone in the labyrinth, trying to find his way out.

His solitude may be partially of his own design, perhaps, but I've still been in Stefan's ear, trying to convince him to push until Damon lets somebody in. Stefan, however, seems set on the fact that I'm the only person with a chance of breaking down his emotional barricade, despite Damon wanting absolutely nothing to do with me anymore for reasons I don't understand. I just wish he had somebody who could talk to him, actually make him listen, but if he won't have me and his own father and brother turn their backs on him, who else is left?

"Elena?" Jenna taps lightly at the door before she sticks her head in, a concerned expression on her face. "What's wrong?"

I hadn't even realized I'd been crying. Hurriedly, I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and force a smile. "Oh, nothing. I'm just being silly."

Jenna softly closes the door behind her, despite nobody else being in the house, and crawls onto my bed to sit beside me. "Elena, if there is one thing I know about you, it's that you are _far_ from silly." She pulls my head into her lap and starts stroking my hair, a gesture that reminds me so painfully of my mother that I feel the tears building up again.

"It's just everything, you know? Today, especially with Jeremy not being here… and all this stuff these past few weeks with Katherine has reminded me of what it felt like when Mom and Dad died. It's just been a bit overwhelming."

We sit in silence for a while, listening to the whirring of the ceiling fan and the distant music of the annual Independence Parade.

"So it has nothing to do with Damon, then?" Jenna questions shrewdly, her eyes on the single word I'd apparently managed to write in my notebook during my daydreaming. I swallow the lump in my throat that appears at the mention of his name and hastily scribble a line through it.

"I don't know; maybe, I guess. He won't talk to me anymore. He won't talk to anybody, but I know he needs help to get through this. I'm really worried about him."

"It's not always your responsibility to fix everybody's problems, Elena. It's a beautiful, selfless trait that you have, but sometimes you put too much stress on yourself to help others and forget to look out for yourself."

"But he _is_ my responsibility. He has nobody else that cares enough to look out for _him_."

"He has a family-"

"A skeleton of one. His mother's not in the picture, his father is detached at best, and his brother is sick of bearing the blows when Damon lashes out. It's only me, and Damon refuses to let me in." I succumb to a fresh wave of sobs and Jenna hugs me tightly, whispering nonsense words in my ear as I try to control my breathing.

"What happened between you two? From the handful of times I've seen you two together, you've seemed like good friends?"

I laugh slightly. "'Friends' is a bit of a stretch. We weren't close; we didn't have heart-to-hearts or anything like that. I was just… _there,_ the night he found out about Katherine's infidelity, the night she died, her funeral. We talked a little. I just wanted to help him through it, you know? But it backfired and now he hates me and I don't even know what I did."

"He doesn't _hate_ you."

"He does! You should have seen the way he looked at me, Jenna; if looks could kill…" I force myself to sit up, wringing my hands together. "He said I was always interfering, that I shouldn't bother calling him. I don't know what to do; he needs help but he won't let me give it to him."

Jenna looks pensive for a moment. "Maybe there's another way."

"What do you mean?"

"I can ask Ric if he'll have a word to Damon…" she trails off, lost in thought. Alaric is my aunt's sort-of boyfriend and the head of the history department at the high school. I've never had him as a teacher, but Damon was in his class last year.

"You think he would?"

"Yeah. Ric told me once that Damon reminded him a lot of himself. Maybe he can get him to open up a little."

"Thank you," I say gratefully, giving her a sideways bear hug, and she laughs.

"Don't thank me yet! And Elena?" Her tone softens, taking on a serious note. "He doesn't hate you, okay? I _promise_. He lost somebody he loved. He's just looking for somewhere to place the blame."

I nod shakily. "I know. But blaming me isn't going to bring her back."

* * *

**DAMON**

The awful heat wave we had for the first week of July has finally broken, and the miserable gray skies and intermittent rain outside are a perfect representation of my current mood. I'm seated in my favorite spot at a bar on the edge of town, where I'm less likely to run into somebody who knows my ID is faker than Rebekah Mikaelson's hair extensions.

_Scratch that. _My old history teacher just wandered in.

As much as I try to duck my head and hide my face behind my whiskey, he spots me and slips easily onto the barstool beside me, ordering 'the usual'.

"Breathe, Salvatore. I'm not going to call the cops. You've earned a drink or two."

I'm not about to tell him that I'm on my third for the day, so I just watch him, fascinated, as he tips his glass towards me before downing half of it in one go.

_Seeing a teacher outside of school is as weird as seeing a polar bear in a desert_.

Mr. Saltzman throws back his head and laughs uproariously, and I realize too late that I voiced my thought aloud. I shrug apologetically. "Sorry, but it's true."

"Don't I know it, kid." We sit in comfortable silence for a moment, before he turns and fixes me with a hawk-sharp glare. "So, how are you doing?"

I roll my eyes. "I knew that was coming. You're not my teacher anymore, Mr. Saltzman; you don't have any obligation to look after me."

"You're right on both counts. Firstly, you don't have to call me 'Mr. Saltzman'. Just 'Ric' is fine. And secondly, I don't have an obligation to you, but I _do_ have an obligation to my girlfriend, and I happen to know that her niece has been moping around the house lately. Care to shed any light on the situation?"

I shrug, opting to finish my drink instead, and tapping twice on the bar to order my next.

"She's worried about you."

"Tell her to stop sticking her nose in where it isn't wanted," I sneer.

"Maybe she has reason to be concerned. I mean, you're eighteen years old, alone in a dive of a bar, on your," his eyes flick down as the bartender sets my glass in front of me, "fourth drink, and it's barely three in the afternoon." _Shit, nothing gets past this guy._

This time, I didn't say it aloud, but he seems to know what I'm thinking anyway. "How did I know that? I've been there, Damon. I've been you. My wife died of cancer a few years back. I spent three months almost catatonic, and another three having violent, angry outbursts at people for no apparent reason. I pushed away everybody that cared about me, and it took almost losing my license to teach, my whole chance at a future before I built up the courage to move on with my life. I could have done it so much faster if I had someone willing to help me through it. You're _lucky_ to have Elena. She's not going to give up on you, and that's the kind of person you want in your corner right now."

I don't say anything, because I know he's right.

"That's enough about Elena, though. I want to know how _you_ are feeling."

I sigh heavily. "I keep thinking about what I'd change if I had the chance."

"And what's that?"

"I'd pay more attention; I'd push her to tell me what was going on in her life that made her so unhappy. I should have known, Ric. I was the only person close enough to her to be able to see it, but I keep going back through everything in my mind and wondering where the signs were, because I can't see a fucking thing."

"Katherine had been hiding her pain for a very long time, Damon. She was an expert. If she didn't want you to see, you wouldn't."

"I'd try to be enough for her," I admit quietly. "If she'd loved me more, if I'd given her more attention, she wouldn't have cheated, and we'd never have fallen apart the way we did."

"Damon, you can't blame yourself. Katherine's emotions were damaged long before you dated her. _None_ of this was your fault."

"Sometimes I wake up, and I've forgotten. I feel so much lighter, and happier, and I can breathe again. Then it all comes flooding back: the fight, the call from her father, the funeral, and the pain of it all is worse than ever."

"Have you thought about seeing a grief counselor?"

I scowl. "I'm not seeing a shrink."

"There's nothing wrong with it. It doesn't mean that there's something wrong with _you_, either. They're there to help you accept the loss of somebody you cared about, and move past it."

"I don't need a shrink." I speak more firmly this time.

"Okay, okay."

I stare hollowly down at my drink again.

"There is nothing you can do to bring her back, Damon," Ric says softly. "It's time you stopped living in the past and beating yourself up about the _should have_'s and _could have_'s and _what if_'s."

He claps me on the back as he stands, emptying his glass and setting it down on the counter with a fifty, presumably to cover both of our bills. "Talk to Elena." He nods to a group of people at the pool table as he leaves.

"Thanks, Ric," I murmur, long after the door swings closed behind him.

* * *

I sit in our regular booth at the Coffee Corner, nervously chewing on my lip as I wait for Elena. I simply sent her a text asking to meet here at six so we could talk, and I didn't get a reply, so I'm not even sure she'll show up. Maybe it's too late, and Ric was wrong, and she _did_ give up on me.

Just as this thought crosses my mind, the bell over the door tinkles and I look up to see Elena walk in. _She doesn't look any different_, I think to myself. Perhaps the circles under her eyes are a little more pronounced than they were the last time I saw her, and there's a glint of anxiety in her gaze too.

"I wasn't sure if I should come," she admits softly, looking shyly at her feet.

"I'm sorry I said those things to you. Let's just say, I've had some sense talked into me since then."

She half-smiles and takes a seat opposite me, looking a little more relaxed, and I breathe out slowly.

"How are you?" I ask lamely, unable to think of any other small talk to ease the awkwardness.

"I'm okay," she replies, after a brief pause. "You?"

"Getting there." This time, the smile she gives me is bright, electric, like I've just made her fucking _week_ by admitting I'm trying to get better.

And just like that, the tension is broken.

We start to chat, like we used to before everything went to shit. She tells me about this new book series she's found; I tell her about the spectacular sight of Carol Lockwood, Mason's mother and wife of the mayor, falling face-first into Sheila Bennett's apple and rhubarb pie at the Fourth of July festival. I'm so caught up in our laughter that I don't even notice Mason enter the café and walk up to our table, as if mentioning his surname summoned him, until he clears his throat, loudly.

"What's new, Salvatore? So, this is your rebound… Got a thing for brunettes?" His harsh and unpleasant laughter sends chills through my body, but I force myself to ignore him and remain calm.

"I didn't think weak little Elena Gilbert had it in her to seduce a guy whose last girlfriend offed herself just a month ago. Color me impressed."

Elena's face turns scarlet and I clench my fists, knowing that if he doesn't stop I'm going to lose it, especially with the amount of alcohol I still have in my system.

"Leave, Mason," I hiss, through clenched teeth.

"Be careful of him, Elena. Wouldn't want you to end up the same way Katherine did!" He crows victoriously, but it's cut short as my first punch hits him straight in the jaw, followed by one to his stomach. It takes him a second to get his bearings, but with a vicious snarl, he strikes back at me, and my alcohol-inhibited reflexes fail to properly block the move.

All I see is blind rage. I'm vaguely aware of Elena screaming at me in the background, but my focus is on the sick bastard in front of me, as if landing enough punches will somehow get justice for Katherine, get revenge for his screwing with my relationship which eventually led to her suicide.

There, I've found it: someone to _blame_.

Mason kicks hard out at me and it lands straight in my chest, sending me flying backwards. I'm winded, and as I'm incapacitated, he lands a hard punch to my face. I'm spitting out blood as I sit up and lunge for his throat, pinning him down and pressing my thumbs into his windpipe.

"It's _your_ fault she's dead!" I shout in his face, spit flying, my eyes stinging, and I see the fear in his gaze as he starts to scrabble helplessly at my hands. "She was fragile and you took advantage of her! You _destroyed_ her!"

"Damon!" I can feel Elena's hands on my arms, and I reluctantly let go of Mason as the sound of approaching sirens becomes clearer. Wordlessly, I turn to her, and she wraps her arms around me, tightly. "Killing him won't bring her back," she whispers in my ear, over and over.

At some point, I realize the burning feeling in my eyes was tears, and I'm sobbing into her shoulder, and I can tell from her shaky and irregular breaths that she's crying too. The sheriff arrives, takes one look at the situation, and sends Mason to the hospital. She tries briefly to convince me to go, too, but I refuse outright and she concedes, going to talk to the stunned-looking café owner instead.

When I start to calm down, I start to realize how much pain I'm in. Elena's leaning her head against my shoulder and holding onto my forearm like I'll go after Mason to finish him off if she lets go. I look down at her and I'm shocked to see her covered in blood, for a moment thinking she was hurt in the fray. She notices me staring and is quick to reassure me.

"Not mine," she breathes, and I sigh with relief. "Yours."

_I must look like shit_.

After the onlookers who've stuck around convince her that Mason goaded me into fighting him, Sheriff Forbes lets me go with a stern warning.

"This is strike two, Damon. Don't let there be a third."

With Elena's help, I manage to limp outside and she helps me into her car.

"I should really take you to the hospital," she says worriedly. "You could have a concussion and you look like you might need stitches."

"I'll be fine," I tell her tersely.

By unspoken agreement, we drive back to her house. Her aunt stares at us open-mouthed as we walk through the door, but Elena gives her a _don't ask_ look and Jenna wisely backs out of the kitchen and heads upstairs.

I lean against the counter as Elena gets a first aid kit, some cold water and towels, reminded of the last time she helped bandage my wounds in this room. She's clearly on the same wavelength as she glances up at me with a small smile and asks, "Why am I always cleaning you up?"

She starts with my face, wiping off some of the excess blood before attending to the cuts as gently as she can. The antiseptic she uses stings like all hell, but I'm determined not to react. After cleaning my hands and giving me some ice for the rest of my bruises, she straightens up, satisfied, and playfully waves her finger at me in reprimand.

"There'd better not be a next time, Mr. Salvatore!"

I laugh and grab one of the clean towels without thinking, reaching for her face to clean my blood off. Her smile drops, her eyes wide and staring into mine intently.

"Sorry," I mumble, thinking my sudden movement must have spooked her.

Painfully slowly, I wipe away the last traces of blood from her face and neck, unable to break eye contact with her. I toss the toweling aside and lean in, my hand coming up to caress her face. Her eyelashes flutter closed, and I lean closer, entranced, feeling her shallow breaths on my lips.

Just as I shut my eyes and close the distance between us, I hear the clattering of footsteps coming into the kitchen.

"Did you guys need- _whoa_!"

Elena and I spring apart, breathing hard, and her aunt stares at us, her mouth hanging open.

"I- uh, I'm… sorry? I'm just going… back upstairs. Yep." Jenna retreats at a speed that would be comical were it not for the circumstances.

I press my eyes tightly closed, trying to silence every thought and emotion currently clamoring for attention in my mind. Elena starts cleaning up, stuffing the dirty toweling in the trash and re-packing the first aid kit.

"Elena," I begin, the word cracking in my throat.

"Damon, I'm so sorry…"

"It was an accident," I blurt. "A mistake. We're both upset. It's been a stressful day."

For a fraction of a second, she looks hurt, but I blink and it's gone. I must have imagined it.

"Yes," she says shortly.

"I should- uh… I should go."

"Yes."

I grab my wallet and keys from the counter. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

I'm out of the door in a flash, taking deep breaths to ease the sickening guilt swelling up in my stomach. _Katherine._

My traitorous memory is dragging up every moment Katherine and I spent together, every kiss, every touch, and replaying it in my mind. I drop to my knees as soon as I'm out of sight of Elena's house, dry heaving into the bushes, bile burning at the back of my throat, my bruised stomach and ribs aching with every convulsion.

But part of me, part of me is wondering what it would have been like to kiss Elena, what it would have been like if I hadn't hesitated, what it would have been like if we hadn't been interrupted.

Should have.

Could have.

What if?

* * *

**A/N: Three chapters down, two to go! Have a great week. ~ Kim**


	4. Depression

**A/N: Thanks again for all your wonderful reviews! I may sound like a broken record, but I'm honestly so grateful for all the love and support you guys show me with each chapter. I look forward to reading your comments every time I check my phone, even if last Monday it did buzz so frequently that my friends pestered me with questions about who was emailing me! **

**Disclaimer: I don't own TVD or its characters or the song _Dust to Dust_ by The Civil Wars; all rights to their respective owners.**

* * *

**DEPRESSION**

_Let me in the walls  
You've built around  
We can light a match  
And burn them down  
Let me hold your hand  
And dance 'round and 'round the flames  
In front of us  
Dust to dust_

**DAMON**

_Emptiness_.

I don't know how much time has passed, but days have started to melt into one another until I can no longer discern Monday from Friday. Enrolment day for college came and went – in another lifetime, I'd made plans with Katherine to attend the community college in Atlanta, but I had no desire to pursue further education now. My dad spent longer hours at work and went on more frequent business trips, and after Stefan left for California, there was a distinct lack of people to tell me to drag my lazy ass out of bed. As a result, I didn't.

I don't think I've ever slept so much in my whole life. I would wake up after twelve solid hours of rest and still feel exhausted, the kind of exhausted that went deeper than the dry-eyed, yawning weariness with which I was well acquainted. It was an ache that would not be relieved, a thirst that could not be quenched, and it seemed that the more hours I spent in bed, the more drained I felt.

On the better days, I'd force myself to get up, taking one look at the shameful conditions I lived in and deciding enough was enough. The takeout containers, the beer bottles, the junk lying around each room in which I'd spent time went into the trashcan. I washed the dishes, did my laundry, checked the piles of mail that had stacked up outside.

Inevitably, after finishing my wild cleaning spree, I'd sit down to have a glass of bourbon, and subsequently another, and another. This would lead to my newfound hobby: calling Katherine's phone to hear her voicemail.

Her cell contract was yet to run out, and though I'd wiped her number from my contacts list the day I'd caught her with Mason, the very first time I tried, my fingers pressed each button as if greeting an old friend. I'd listened to the ringing, counting each one, five… six… seven… and there she was.

"_You've reached the voicemail of Katherine Pierce and I probably don't want to talk to you right now._"

"That's it?" I'd whispered into the receiver after the flat whine signaled the start of the recording. I'd dated Katherine for two years and not once had I ever reached her voicemail; she was religious about keeping her cell with her at all times and I'd apparently never made her list of people she wanted to avoid.

Initially, I'd been angry. Disappointed. Furious with myself for believing in something so stupid and lovesick.

Three days later, when I called again, I told myself that the message was Katherine in her purest form – brusque, honest, and sassy. Thus began the ritual of spending my evenings calling her, listening to that one sentence over and over, and occasionally starting a pathetic one-sided conversation. Sometimes I'd yell, sometimes I'd apologize, and sometimes I'd tell her I loved her. Part of me hoped each time that, before that seventh ring, the call would click and I'd be rewarded with a blatant insult or flippant remark, but it never did.

At the end of August, I was greeted with a computer-generated female voice informing me that the number I had dialed was no longer in service.

"Damon?"

I jolt from my reverie, rolling over in bed to look toward the doorway, and for a split second, due to the sudden bright light in my sleep-clouded eyes, the slender brunette silhouetted in the doorway looks like my dead ex-girlfriend.

"I've finally lost it," I laugh hollowly to myself.

The ghost sweeps down to kneel at my bedside, and I recognize Elena's anxious expression, tears shining in her eyes.

Thankfully, yesterday – at least I think it had been yesterday – had been one of my cleaning days, so there wasn't an embarrassing amount of filth lying around my home for the first time she'd been in it. I struggle to pull myself up to a sitting position, my body feeling ten times heavier with the debilitating exhaustion that losing someone heaps upon you.

"Damon, I'm sorry for coming in here like this," she says softly, her eyes scanning mine intently. "Nobody's seen or heard from you in days. I'd have come sooner, but I was swamped at work. How are you doing?"

I avoid her question, instead choosing to focus on the one thing that vaguely grabbed my interest. "Work?"

"I'm an assistant at Hopkins Real Estate."

"Oh. I thought you wanted to go to college." Her face falls at my words, and I immediately feel guilt, cold and unwelcome, aching in my chest. It's a feeling I've fought hard to bury since Katherine died, and I push it away, doing my best to ignore it.

"I did… I do. The timing just didn't work out for me this year, but I've been taking some night classes in town."

"Oh." I bite my tongue this time, not wanting to upset her, but I know Elena Gilbert, and she is not the type to be answering phones, taking night classes, and watching all her aspirations slowly get sucked down the drain.

"You haven't answered my question," she points out. "How are y-"

"How am I doing?" I stare at her in disbelief. "How do you think I'm doing?"

She sucks in her breath through her teeth. "Not well, by the look of it."

"Ding ding! We have a winner," I say sarcastically, climbing out of bed. "I'm not having this conversation with you when you've just so _rudely_ interrupted my beauty sleep. Give me twenty minutes to make myself decent and then we'll talk."

Sure enough, when I thump down the stairs after showering and throwing on some fresh clothes, she's in my kitchen, clearly having worked out how to use the ancient coffee press my father refuses to throw away. She sets a steaming hot cup in front of me as I take a seat at the table, and watches nervously as I take a sip, and another.

"Possibly the best coffee I've ever tasted out of that piece of shit," I mutter reluctantly, and she beams at me in response, grabbing her own cup and sitting down opposite me.

"So, Vicki Donovan's in rehab."

I feel the faint stirrings of anger, somewhere deep down, but I can't bring myself to care. "Good for her."

"I heard she's sobering up for good this time. I think… Katherine… had an effect on her."

"I'd be happy for her, but, you know, she killed my ex."

"You know that isn't true, Damon," Elena says sadly. "We both know that if Vicki hadn't given her the pills, she would have found another way."

"We don't know anything about what went through Katherine's mind that day."

The answering silence causes me to look up and meet her eyes, and she looks uncomfortable for a moment, but says nothing.

"How do you know she's in rehab anyway? I thought that sort of stuff was supposed to be kept private."

Elena bites her lip, and I immediately think she must have done something illegal.

"It's okay, you don't have to tell me."

"No, no. It's okay. I… I saw her there. I was visiting," she elaborates, seeing the look of shock on my face. "Jeremy."

And it all falls into place, the flashes of worry in her eyes when her brother is mentioned, his conspicuous absences, and the reason Elena's stuck in Mystic Falls serving coffee to real estate agents instead of pursuing her dreams at college.

"I had no idea." I reach across the table to take her hand, and she offers me a tiny smile.

"It's okay. He's getting the help he needs now. He almost overdosed a while back, a couple of days after Katherine's funeral. That was how we found out that Vicki was dealing; he agreed to give up her name so the sheriff would drop the possession charges." _It could have been my brother_. The words go unspoken, because she is too selfless, too compassionate to voice them. I remember how angry I got at her that day in her house, her brother's issues fresh in her mind, and again the guilt threatens to overwhelm me.

We chat about mundane things, and it actually feels good to have some human contact that isn't the delivery guy from the local Chinese restaurant or Katherine's snarky voicemail. I can feel myself forgetting, feel the emptiness start to drain away, little by little, and then our conversation turns to silence and it crawls back again, burning in the back of my throat and behind my eyes, waiting to be unleashed.

"When I lost my parents," she begins quietly, and I feel a tiny jolt as I remember the car crash, the town memorial, the young girl with the long braids throwing white roses in her parents' graves. "I thought I'd never be over it. I didn't stop crying myself to sleep for months, but I never talked to anybody about it. I was told to be strong, and I thought that meant that I had to pretend it didn't affect me and just keep going. But you know what I found out? All I had to do was just let it out, let go of all of the pain I had bottled up inside me, and I started to feel better."

She gazes at me imploringly with those wide brown eyes, and the words I wanted to say get lost in my throat.

"I'm _here_, Damon."

Those three soft words are all it takes, and the dam is broken.

Hot tears stream down my face, and I feel no shame as Elena holds my hands in hers on the oaken table, our empty coffee cups by our side, and she watches me in total, accepting silence.

"I loved her," I manage to gasp out the words, releasing one of Elena's hands to swipe at my eyes and clear my blurred vision. "I thought it was real. To everybody else, she was this formidable, detached, cruel person, but behind closed doors, she was bright, and funny, and not… nice, exactly, but you could tell she cared, or at least, it seemed like she did. I fell in love with every bit of her, because that's the way she was. I never thought for a second that she was unhappy, or that she was cheating. We had no secrets from one another."

Elena says nothing, merely squeezing my hands in an effort to console me.

"I thought she was indestructible. The entire world was at her feet, and she was going to go on to do things that would be immortalized in history. She had so much ahead of her and she threw it all away, and what does she get? Not one soul in this godforsaken town dares to talk about her. Her death gets swept under the rug; they pretend it never happened, like a blemish on their perfect image that they want to cover up."

I've stopped crying now, and the anger and hatred I've kept buried rises to the surface again. Elena just keeps watching me impassively, knowing that I need to get all of this toxic, consuming emotion out before it destroys me.

"They didn't even show up to her _funeral_. A girl died, and she supposedly had so many _friends_ and none of them showed. I always suspected that people just wanted her approval, and they wanted her popularity to extend to them. She insisted otherwise, but not one of them turned up to honor her memory."

"Caroline did," Elena remarks quietly. "I know she's been really affected by this whole thing, too."

"Caroline was the only one of Katherine's friends that I didn't hate," I laugh bitterly. "Vicki was there out of guilt, no doubt. God knows why _you_ were there. And then there was me, even though she'd betrayed me. I _hated_ her, and I was still there, and where were all the people who'd claimed to love her, to be her closest friends? And where was _fucking_ Mason Lockwood? Did he not feel even a shred of guilt for single-handedly triggering the downward spiral that would lead to the end of her life?"

I fall silent, hearing the echoes of my words coming back at me, but feeling inexplicably lighter, less restricted. I know without looking that Elena's crying again.

"But I loved her," I repeat quietly. "Even though it wasn't real."

"Damon," Elena cuts in, her eyes wide. "There's something you need to know."

* * *

**ELENA**

He tenses at my words and I inwardly kick myself for taking away the short moment of relief he experienced after letting himself grieve. _Way to go, Elena_.

"That night, when I saw her – she told me things."

"I know. You told me," Damon says bitterly. "She wanted things to be simple, to end."

"There was more to it than that," I admit hesitantly, watching Damon's face for any sign of anger. He doesn't react, only continues to observe me with those intense blue eyes. "She craved… normalcy. She hated that people built her up to be so much, with all the lies and rumors that spread like wildfire around the whole town. She hated that people expected her to maintain this reputation of being a cruel bitch, that she was never allowed to be herself for fear they would reject the _real_ her, that people only befriended her because they had something to gain."

Damon remains silent, but a storm is brewing in his eyes as he absorbs all this new information. I can't help but remember the identical look in Katherine's eyes that night, as I was leaving the Grill.

_"Elena Gilbert." For a voice that's normally so controlled and sharp, she sure sounds like she's falling apart. "What is it about you? Why are you more deserving of a mundane, white-picket-fence life than I am?"_

_I turn around, slowly, my heart sinking. "Katherine." Her hair is tangled and messy, her makeup tracked down her face with now-dried tears. She's wearing an oversized light grey sweatshirt with a coffee stain on the front, and tight black jeans with a rip in the right knee – I'm surprised she's willing to be seen in public like this, although I can guess she's not in the frame of mind to care very much about that right now._

_"Have you seen Damon?" Her voice cracks on his name, and she coughs slightly, hugging her arms around herself and shivering in the late-night breeze._

_I bite my lip, wondering if I should be honest with her, or keep my promise to Damon about keeping my mouth shut. I don't get a chance to decide, however, as she sinks to her knees on the pavement, her head in her hands._

_"I fucked up," she wails, her voice muffled and punctuated by dry, heaving sobs._

_"Come on; let's get you inside," I tell her, trying to help her to her feet, but she tugs her arm away from me, looking up at me with new venom in her eyes._

_"Perfect little Elena, can't put a foot wrong," she spits at me. "He deserves somebody like you, who isn't as screwed up as I am."_

_"What are you talking about?" I ask, though I have my suspicions. "Come inside and we'll talk about it. I can help you."_

_"You can help me?" she exclaims in disbelief. "What would you know about what I'm going through? You've never been alone a day in your life."_

_I stare at her, waiting for her to elaborate._

_"You were there when my parents got divorced. My mother was a drunk and my father despised her, and there you were with your perfect parents and perfect baby brother and I just couldn't understand why our lives were so different or what I did to deserve my life over yours. I never saw my mother again, and my father could barely stand to be around me, so I was on my own almost all of the time."_

_"My parents died, Katherine," I remind her, and she laughs, sounding almost deranged._

_"And the entire town rallied around you, supporting you and your brother and your aunt in every way they could. But they turned their backs on me."_

_I hear the truth in her words and start to feel guilt, sour as bile, in the back of my throat and deep in my chest._

_"Tell me something, Elena. What's it like to have friends? I mean, real friends, people who genuinely like you, not what they can get from you? What's it like to have people unafraid to speak their minds?"_

_I can't think of anything to say, so I kneel beside her, attempting to rub her shoulder in reassurance._

_"None of the rumors were ever true," she remarks with resentment. "But when he… I mean, everybody believed them anyway, so what did I have to lose? I was wrong, though, because I lost everything I had left. I lost Damon."_

_"Katherine…" _

_"I love him, Elena. I really love him but I screwed up and I can't fix it."_

_"I'm sure that's not true-"_

_"You don't understand," she sighs. "Nobody does."_

_"Help me to understand," I beg her, but she doesn't acknowledge me, lost in her own thoughts._

_"I never wanted to be like this. I wish I had a simple, boring life, that there was some way for this charade to all be over. Damon was the only good thing in my life and I fucked it up, because that's how I am; I'm screwed up and I have to be alone or I'll drag everybody else down with me."_

_After a few moments of silence, I watch her rebuild her steely exterior, piece by piece. She stands up, wiping her tears on her sleeve, leaving dark streaks of mascara on the faded fabric. Her face is impassive as she runs her fingers through her tangled curls, taking a deep breath, her eyes cool and detached, as always._

_"This never happened," she tells me apathetically, as if discussing the weather. "If you tell a soul, I'll destroy you." _

_"Katherine," I try, but she fixes me with a harsh glare, and my words die in my throat._

_I'm still on my knees as she walks away, the arrogance back in her strut, the vanity in the way she tosses her hair, the self-assurance in her posture._

_But I can't help feeling like this isn't where the story ends._

Damon doesn't say a word when I finish my recollection, but he's breathing heavily.

"She loved you, Damon. I honestly think you were the only thing that _was_ real in her life – everything else was fabricated with money and lies."

"She slept with Mason because she thought she had nothing to lose?"

"She slept with him because she thought the truth may as well match up to her reputation. The world labeled her a tramp, so she became one; hell, Mason probably went to her for that very reason."

Damon releases a slow, shaky breath, the angry tears in his eyes threatening to overflow.

"I think we were the only two people who ever had the chance to see through her façade," I tell him. "For what it's worth, what you felt for her and she for you was real, if that gives you any closure. But there was nothing either of us could have done to change her mind."

"Go home, Elena," Damon says tightly.

"Damon…"

"_Go_."

I see the dark look in his eye and recognize that he needs his privacy to grieve, to forgive, and to set her free. It's all out in the open now; I've done everything I can and now it's up to him to take the information and alleviate his own suffering, reach some sort of peace between himself and her so he can move on.

Slowly, I get to my feet, and I hear him follow me to the front door, but before I leave, I have to do one last thing.

I turn back to him and envelope him in a warm hug, squeezing him tightly. He seems surprised at first, but after a moment he puts his arms around me, too, his face pressed into my hair. I know it's too dangerous to speak what I feel, so I try to tell him through our embrace, and the way he sighs and his whole body relaxes tells me he understands.

"Thank you, Elena," he says so softly that I almost don't hear it, and it's so much more than an expression of gratitude for telling him the truth about what Katherine told me the night of May thirteenth.

It's only after I'm halfway up the street that I allow myself to cry for him.

* * *

When I arrive home, Jenna's seated in my father's old armchair by the entrance to the living room. It was always his signal of wanting to have a serious conversation; after my first detention, after Jeremy's first fight, after a boy – Matt Donovan – asked me to our middle school dance. Jenna's chewing on her nails, so I know there's something on her mind.

"Hey, Jenna."

"Elena, do you have a minute?" She looks nervous, the kind of unease that comes with trying to be a parent to a teenager when you've never had a child in your life.

"Sure." I sit down on the couch opposite her, pulling a cushion into my arms and tucking my feet underneath me. "What's up?"

"I just wanted to see how you were doing."

"Me?" I ask in surprise. "I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"You've been through a lot recently, between everything that happened with Katherine, and then Jeremy."

"Oh." I frown slightly, trying to think. "Well, I guess things could be better? But Jeremy's on the road to recovery now…"

Jenna shifts uncomfortably in her seat. "I mean… how are things with you and Damon?"

I stare at her blankly for a moment before it clicks, and then groan.

"Jenna…"

"You're leaning on him, Elena-"

"Is that such a bad thing?" I demand.

She watches me with concern, her green eyes strikingly like my mother's. "Look, Elena. You're a smart, independent girl and I trust you to make your own decisions. I'm going to ask you this once, and once only." She sighs, a deep exhalation of the decades of wisdom she's had to pick up in the last five years. "Do you know what you're doing?"

"No," I reply, honestly. "I have no idea. I… I think I'm falling for him. I know it's wrong, and I know he's not ready, and I know it's almost guaranteed to go up in flames if I ever pursue it, but I can't help it."

Jenna jumps to her feet as tears fill my eyes and she dives onto the couch beside me, pulling me into her warm embrace.

"I'm happy for it to be like this right now," I whisper tearfully. "I want to be there for him, just as a friend. But I can't promise that sometime down the track I won't want _more_ than that."

"You know what I think?"

"That I'm an idiot?"

She laughs at me, rolling her eyes. "I think that you'll do the right thing, whatever that may be. When the time comes, you'll know."

"I hope so," I murmur, under my breath. "I really, really do."

* * *

Three nights later, I'm curled up in bed with my tattered copy of _Pride and Prejudice_ when my phone buzzes on the nightstand. I don't recognize the number, and the area code is Californian, so I let it go to voicemail and turn my attention back to my book.

After my phone rings for the third time, I answer it, figuring it must be important.

"Hello?"

"Elena?" a breathless voice asks.

"Yes?"

"It's Stefan."

A wide smile breaks out on my face. "Oh, hey, Stefan! How's college life treating you?"

"Is Damon with you?" The panic is clear in his every word, and the smile falls from my face.

"No, why? Is something wrong?"

"I can't reach him. He's not answering his cell or the landline."

"Maybe he's out and forgot his phone?" I suggest, trying to suppress all of the nightmare images that flash through my head and telling myself there's a sensible explanation.

"He called me today while I was in class and left a voicemail. It… it sounded bad, Elena. It sounded like he was saying goodbye."

I'm out of bed in a heartbeat, throwing on a sweater over my nightshirt and swapping my shorts for jeans. "Tell me _exactly_ what he said," I say, gritting my teeth as I throw together my essentials in my purse.

"He thanked me for looking out for him, told me I was a good brother, and he said there was something he had to do, he'd made up his mind and he had to do it before he backed out. That was it." I've never heard Stefan sound so scared.

"I'm on my way to your place right now," I tell him, trying to sound reassuring as I grab my car keys and open the front door. "I'll call you when…"

"Elena?" Stefan prompts when I don't finish my sentence, but the words are lost.

Standing on my doorstep, with his fist raised about to knock, is a very surprised-looking Damon Salvatore.

"He's here," I manage to say, almost fainting with relief. "I'll call you later."

"Who was that?" Damon asks curiously as I step back to let him past.

"Your brother. You scared the shit out of him."

Damon shrugs, the familiar smirk back in his eye. "It's okay, you won't notice the new worry lines amongst the ones he got from spending all his time brooding."

"What are you doing here? Why didn't you answer your cell when Stefan called?"

He pats his pocket, frowning slightly. "I must have left it at home."

"You _idiot_," I growl, shoving him once in the chest in my anger. "We thought something was wrong."

"Okay, okay!" He grabs my hands as I go to push him again. "I'm sorry I scared you."

"You'd better apologize to him, too," I grumble, but it's hard to stay angry at him when he looks so much better than he did just days ago, and I bite my lip to suppress the smile fighting its way onto my face. "So, _again_, what are you doing here?"

"I figured something out," he says matter-of-factly, wandering into the living room and collapsing down onto the couch. I stay standing, facing him with my arms folded across my chest.

"And what is that, precisely?"

"You."

I narrow my eyes at him. "You've figured _me_ out?"

"Not exactly."

"Care to enlighten me?"

He takes a deep breath, his eyes unreadable. "It feels like years ago that we were just English partners. We barely knew each other, and the only things that we talked about were school-related."

"I know; I remember."

He looks hesitant for a moment, as if considering his words. "I figured out why you were always _there_. After we talked, that night at the Grill, you were always in the back of my mind, and I couldn't figure it out. But talking to you kind of… made me feel better, I guess. Calmer. Then I found myself staring at the back of your head in class or seeking you out just to ask about our coursework even though I already knew the answers or making terrible jokes just to see you smile."

For a breathless minute, perhaps hours, we stare at each other in silence, trying to read what's written behind the other's eyes, trying to see into the deep abyss.

"What are you saying, Damon?" My voice comes out shaky, an octave higher than I mean it to.

"You were real, and honest, and warm, and I was drawn to you." He bites his lip, steeling himself for whatever he's about to say. "I guess what I'm _trying_ to say is that I was just starting to think I could move on from what happened with Katherine… and then she had to go and _die_ and tear my life to pieces all over again."

Words fail me. My eyes drop to the ground, unable to hold his intense gaze any longer.

"You're _amazing_, Elena, and I… you're the kind of person I'd really like to have around." He stands, and I look up at him in alarm, but he just walks towards me and takes my hands in his.

"Damon…"

"I don't want to rush into anything." His voice is much softer now; I almost have to lean closer to him to hear it. "But I need you to stick with me."

"Always," I breathe, and he smiles at me, a genuine smile for the first time since Katherine died.

He searches my face as he drops one of my hands, tracing his fingers gently down my cheek in a light caress. "It's right," he whispers, "just not right now."

It isn't going to be easy, and it isn't going to be conventional.

But we'll get there.

And in the end, it'll all be worth it.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading. Hope you all survived the last episode... I won't bring up the way Elena threw herself into Damon's arms, or his heartfelt speech, or the voicemails he left her while she was missing, I promise. One more chapter to go! I look forward to further public embarrassment from all your email notifications ;)  
~ Kim**


	5. Acceptance

**A/N: The final chapter is here, and it's a monster! **

**Disclaimer: I don't own TVD or its characters or the song ****_Dust to Dust_**** by The Civil Wars; all rights to their respective owners.**

* * *

**ACCEPTANCE **

_You're like a mirror, reflecting me  
Takes one to know one, so take it from me  
You've been lonely  
You've been lonely, too long  
We've been lonely  
We've been lonely, too long_

**ELENA**

If there were one word I could use to describe the relationship between Damon and me, it'd be _explosive_. Perhaps not solely for the reasons one might think, either. Since last September, I'm almost certain we've spent more time fighting than we have together.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

At first, our relationship had been tentative, near non-existent. It had started with sharing brief meals – Damon would bring takeout to Hopkins during my lunch breaks on a weekly basis, and maybe I'd drop by with croissants and cappuccinos on a Sunday morning – and we'd simply talk, getting to know each other the way we should have. I learned about his likes and dislikes, I heard funny stories about his childhood with Stefan, and one particularly cold November day, when the brisk wind bit through our clothing and stained our faces red as we walked to the movie theater, he even told me about his mother.

Our first fight was a week later, on what I discovered afterwards was Katherine's birthday. He'd slept late, and I'd arrived at his place to find him still holed up in his bedroom when I'd expected him to be ready to go to the library with me.

_Without hesitation, I push the door open and breeze into the room, surprised to find the Damon-shaped lump in the bed instead of by his desk or on the loveseat._

_"Wakey, wakey," I announce cheerfully, sitting down at the end of the bed and folding my legs Indian-style. "Rise and shine, sleeping beauty."_

_He grunts once and rolls to face the wall, and I frown, prodding him once with my finger and feeling irritated when he mumbles something that sounds a lot like "Fuck off, Elena!"_

_I glance around the room idly but my gaze catches on a cluster of empty beer bottles, haphazardly lined up behind a stack of books like he'd hoped to conceal them. Angrily, I fling open the curtains and rip back the comforter, and Damon yelps as the bright midday sunshine invades his senses._

_His bloodshot eyes and pale, sweat-beaded face confirms what I already know to be one of the worst hangovers of his life, and I cross my arms disapprovingly as he scowls, pulling himself reluctantly into a sitting position but still looking blinded by the harsh light._

_"What do you want?" Damon growls belligerently._

_I simply stare at him, unable to believe the sudden backwards slide in his progress. _

_"Is it not enough that you've ruined my life, so you have to ruin my eyesight, too?" He crawls over to the curtains, closing them again and sighing in relief, but his words cut like knives._

_"Okay, jerk, that was uncalled for," I snarl at him, but I don't get a chance to continue before he launches out of the bed and pushes past me, barely making it to the toilet in time to heave his stomach contents out, complete with ghastly sound effects. I watch without a lick of sympathy; it's self-inflicted, and he broke his promise. Let him suffer._

_"Do I even want to know what brought this on?" I ask as he shakily wipes his mouth and gets to his feet. He ignores me, taking two aspirin from the medicine cabinet and swallowing them before stalking back to his bed. "Ah, the silent treatment. How completely mature of you."_

_"Just get lost, Elena," he mutters venomously. _

_"What the hell is wrong with you?" I exclaim. "You get shitfaced drunk and suddenly I'm not good enough for you anymore?"_

_"I'm not your project! I won't be some broken toy for you to fix!"_

_"I'm not trying to fix you! Jesus, Damon, when are you going to get it through your thick skull? I care about you."_

_"Don't bother," he spits, eyes flashing with malice. "I'm not the good guy. I'm selfish; I take what I want; I do what I want. I don't do the right thing, but I have to do the right thing by you, and that means that I tell you to leave me the fuck alone, and for once in your life, you listen."_

_"Is that what this is about? You think you're bad for me?" I ask incredulously, and the lack of response I receive from him only confirms my suspicions. "I'm not dealing with you like this. When you're over whatever this," I gesticulate wildly around the room, the anger practically vibrating from my fingertips, "is, you'll know where to find me."_

He'd come to me a couple of days later, full of apologies, and I'd pulled him wordlessly into a tight hug.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" I'd whispered.

"I didn't want you to feel like she was an obstacle between us," he'd admitted, and I ignored the significance that those words had, not ready to accept what they meant just yet.

Jenna had pushed me to invite Damon and his family to Thanksgiving, and he readily accepted, seeming genuinely happy to be asked. The holiday coincided with Jeremy's release from rehab, so for the first time since our parents' passing, our house was brimming with people. It was the first time I'd ever properly met Damon's father, but he seemed nice enough; though initially standoffish and occasionally stern in his words to his sons, he had a hearty laugh that lit up the house with its vibrancy.

Jenna and Alaric had teamed up to create a feast to feed seventy, let alone the seven of us, and Giuseppe had brought various bottles of good quality wine, which he even let Damon and I sample. Stefan politely declined, and Jeremy, of course, took one look at the fatherly warning on Ric's face and pushed the proffered glass away.

After our stomachs were stuffed to bursting and Jenna had firmly rejected our offers to help clean up, Damon and I retreated upstairs to my bedroom to watch a movie while Stefan and Jeremy set up some video game. The minimal wine we'd consumed had gone to our heads, and after a bit of giggling, we curled up on the bed together, his arm around my shoulders and my head resting on his chest.

As the movie started, he'd absently begun to stroke my back and the pleasant sensation made my eyelids flutter. I'd rolled onto my stomach to give him better access, but that only succeeded in me ending up almost completely on top of him. He hadn't seemed to mind, though; he took one look at me and pulled me closer, the movie forgotten as our lips met for the first time.

One taste and I was gone. His lips were soft, insistent against my own, and they tasted of dry white wine and the vanilla ice cream that had accompanied dessert. After a few seconds, I'd pulled away, preparing myself for guilt or regret, but when my eyes opened and met his, I saw only breathless curiosity and _desire_.

Unable to stop myself, even if I'd wanted to, I leaned into him again, this time giving myself over to him completely. My mouth had opened to his, and the entire world around us disappeared; I forgot who I was or where we were and all I knew was that I could go on kissing Damon _forever_.

He'd rolled us until I was underneath him, holding his weight off me with one hand and using the other to gently push my hair out of my face. I'd responded by twisting my hands in his shirt, biting down on his bottom lip slightly, and I was rewarded with his sharp intake of breath and a renewed vigor to his ministrations.

He left my lips and for a moment I'd thought it was over, but he continued to kiss over my jaw and down onto my neck, his hot breath and light stubble tickling me enough to half-heartedly attempt to push him away. He'd ignored me, smiling slightly against my skin, instead running his hand down the side of my body, coming to rest behind my thigh and bending my leg so it curled around his hip. He'd rolled us back over again, and I was just about to reunite our mouths when I heard a loud knock on the door.

"Elena? Jeremy wanted me to ask you guys if you wanted to play Mario Kart with them."

Thanking every deity that my aunt had had the decency to knock instead of just waltzing in, I'd fought to keep my voice steady as I answered, "Okay, we'll be right down." I'd listened to her retreating footsteps, and then kissed Damon quickly and chastely before attempting to smooth down my hair and fix my lipstick so it wasn't blatantly obvious that Jenna had interrupted something.

As we'd joined the others, Stefan had thrown us a knowing smirk but remained silent, simply handing us our controllers and declaring 'game on'.

When the Salvatore's had left, Damon had only pecked me on the cheek in farewell. Feeling fleetingly disappointed, I'd stepped back and smiled at him.

"See you Saturday?" he'd asked hopefully, looking slightly nervous. All prior disappointment gone, I'd just nodded, unable to say another word.

After Thanksgiving, we progressed further into the _dating_ territory, inch by inch. There were no repeats of the steamy make-out session, but we shared brief kisses each time we were together privately, holding hands when nobody was looking, going to dinner in actual restaurants instead of cheap burger joints.

On Christmas Eve, we holed up in my bedroom to exchange gifts. After I'd presented him with a stack of carefully selected books to add to his impressive library, he gave me a beautiful white-gold charm bracelet, a delicate 'E' the first and only charm. Sweet, thoughtful gifts, not elaborate; a promise, not a binding commitment – they were an exact representation of our budding romance.

We attended the midnight mass at our local church, where I suggested that we light a candle in Katherine's memory. Damon agreed, and there was a faraway look in his eyes as he held the lit flame to the wick of the one we'd chosen. It was then that it sunk in, watching him change when the thought of _her_ was at the forefront of his mind. She will _always_ be an obstacle between us, unseen and intangible, whether we want her there or not. She is a ghost that haunts him, a part of him that I must accept if I am to love him the way he deserves to be loved.

And I _do_ accept it, and I _do_ love him.

I'm not perfect, though, and I will admit to occasionally being jealous of a phantom. I'm not proud of it, nor am I proud of the arguments it has caused. I don't like competing for his attention with a dead girl, and a few short months ago, I'd have called myself shallow for it. Perhaps I still am, but that Elena didn't know that reality would be far different from what she imagined.

On New Years' Eve, for example, we had plans to travel into Richmond's city center to watch some fireworks and see the ball drop on the huge screen in the town square. It was something I was looking forward to, ringing in the New Year with my pseudo-boyfriend, saying goodbye to a year that held a lot of pain for the both of us. Naturally, when Damon changed his mind at six o'clock that evening and claimed he'd rather stay in, I grew very frustrated.

"Damon, _please_. I really think it will be fun to get out for once and do something," I'd begged. "I want to see the fireworks." When he refused, I'd gotten angry. "You can't keep letting her hold you back from having a life. Please, just come with me."

He'd ignored that, so I'd left for Richmond on my own, after allowing myself a brief cry in my car. I'd spent the whole evening alone in a crowd of people, trying to enjoy myself despite the circumstances, but I was distinctly relieved when, just after eleven, I'd felt a tap on my shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Elena," he'd told me, his tone laced with regret. "Even if we fought, I don't want to start this next year off badly. I don't want to celebrate without you."

I'd forgiven him, of course, and at the stroke of midnight, we'd shared a kiss that sparked fireworks behind my eyelids to put the display in the sky to shame.

On Valentine's Day, cliché as it was for our atypical relationship, we took things to the next level. It had started off innocently enough…

_One day._

_For just one day, I want us to be a normal couple._

_That's what I'd told Damon, anyway, and I wait for him to pick me up for our Valentine's Day dinner date with no idea what he has in store._

_We're still yet to define our relationship – progress is slow and we've never gotten further than we did on Thanksgiving, as neither of us was willing to push the other. I know that I love Damon, and I have for a long time, but I'm hesitant to tell him for fear that he will freak out. Katherine is the only girl he's loved before me, and she broke him, destroying his heart for me to try to put the pieces back together. We are as fragile as those carefully assembled shards, gradually solidifying with the strength of our friendship, and it's not something I'm willing to lose._

_The doorbell chimes, right on seven o'clock. Aunt Jenna opens the door before I can get there, and I hear her greet Damon as I walk into the hallway. He's wearing a suit, holding a bouquet of violet and white flowers to match the lavender halter neck dress I'm wearing, and he grins dazedly when his gaze falls on me._

_"Hi," I say shyly, taking the flowers gratefully and sticking them in the white ceramic vase that Jenna pulls out of nowhere. _

_"Our reservation is at seven-thirty, so we should get going now, in case there's traffic," Damon explains. Jenna sends me off with an air kiss and a wink – she's already told me that I'm a sensible adult and free to make my own decisions regarding where I spend the night. At the time, of course, I'd shaken my head ruefully at her and laughed it off, but there's always that lingering possibility, when Damon gazes at me for a fraction too long, when his hand pauses in its casual stroking of my back; in the moment just before our lips meet, just before my eyelashes flutter closed, I see it: the desire. _

_Damon opens the car door for me, clearly having missed no detail of our perfectly ordinary, cliché-ridden date. I try to figure out where he's driving, but he takes me north, outside the town border along a road I've never been on before._

_"Are you taking out here to brutally murder me and dump the body?" I tease. "I watch all those crime dramas with you, you know. I'm onto you."_

_Damon shrugs, simply pulling off the main road down a long gravel lane, winding through the trees. As they clear, an old, sprawling manor comes into view, the kind built in the nineteenth century and covered in vines. It's slightly set into the hillside, overlooking a small lake and tucked into dense evergreen forest, a hidden gem I'd never have found on my own._

_"How'd you know this was here?" I ask breathlessly, twisting around in the car seat to get a look at where we'd come from._

_"My dad's a history buff. He used to talk about this mansion just outside of town that was built by some wealthy aristocrat in the mid-1800s. They've converted it into a restaurant."_

_I'm spellbound as the valet helps me from the car and takes the keys from Damon, who links his arm with mine to lead me up the marble steps. From here I can see the snow higher up in the mountains, smell the damp scent of pine, and hear the rushing of a nearby waterfall. It's magical._

_The waiter seats us near the front window, and Damon pulls out my chair for me as I sit down. I peck his cheek in gratitude, and study the menu intensely, my eyebrows rising slightly when I see the prices of the food._

_"Damon?" My voice escalates to a squeak as I point wordlessly at the three figures next to the lobster thermidor. He rolls his eyes at me, and orders us some drinks – traditional house lemonade for him and mineral water for me._

_When our meals arrive, my mouth waters uncontrollably. I've ordered the prosciutto-wrapped chicken, with roasted pumpkin and feta stuffed spinach leaves, and chat potatoes. Damon ordered a wagyu beef steak, which came with Portobello mushrooms, crispy potatoes, and green salad. We eat in contented silence, enjoying our scenic view and occasionally sneaking shy smiles at one another._

_My phone vibrates towards the end of the meal and I glance at it, quickly reading the message from my aunt. _

So Alaric saw your flowers from Damon and asked what they meant. Apparently, the type he chose could contain a message… you should look them up: calla lilies, freesia, and white violets.

_Intrigued, I sneakily find an online guide for floriography while Damon is settling the bill and scan it briefly. Calla lilies signify beauty, and my cheeks warm slightly at the compliment, as does my heart when I read that a freesia is a symbol of trust. _

_"What are you smiling at?" Damon asks curiously and I look up, startled, stuffing my cell in my purse hurriedly._

_"Nothing, just something Jenna said," I smile, taking his arm as we leave the restaurant._

_When we arrive back at his place, he gives me a goofy bow before offering to take my coat and I laugh, kissing him chastely because I can't resist him when he's like this. He tells me to wait in his room while he prepares another surprise, and I pretend not to know that he's talking about the expensive champagne he'd asked Ric to purchase for him. Instead, I hurry up the stairs, pulling out my phone as I go, eagerly searching the webpage for the meaning of white violets._

_"Let's take a chance," I read aloud, my voice coming out barely above a whisper. Let's take a chance… and he's right, because we've been nothing but cautious and now it's time to be impulsive._

_I hear his footsteps behind me and drop my purse to the floor, and he sets the bottle and two champagne flutes on his desk just in time before I'm flinging myself towards him and sending him backwards into the door, which slams shut. I'm kissing him fiercely, and his hands dive into my hair, his fingers combing through my tresses. He moans slightly as I press him harder into the oak, my fingers gripping the collar of his shirt as my tongue delves into his mouth._

_He mumbles something, and I sink my teeth gently into his lip before I release him, panting slightly with my forehead pressed to his._

_"Elena," he tries again, equally winded. "What are you doing?"_

_"I want to take a chance, Damon," I whisper, running my fingers over his clothed body and watching their exploration, entranced. When my hands cup his jaw, and I look up to meet his eyes, I see the same combination of lust, apprehension, and – dare I say it – love that I myself am feeling, crashing into me like a wave._

_He claims my lips again, this time running his hands down behind my thighs so he can lift me. I wrap my arms around his neck, adjusting my kisses to the new angle of being higher than him, and he groans appreciatively. Before Damon, I never knew simple kissing could be this intoxicating, this consuming; I feel like I'm being torn apart and sewn back together all at the same time, and it's terrifying, empowering, and exhilarating. _

_He slowly sets me down, turning me around and pulling my long hair out of his way so he can press slow kisses to my neck, behind my ear. My hand reaches up and around to hold him there, and he settles one hand on my hip while his other grasps the zip of my dress, pulling it down bit by bit. He brushes his lips against the newly exposed skin of my back and I shiver in anticipation, enjoying every second of this worship of my body._

_After a moment, he unclips the halter neck and my dress falls smoothly to the floor, leaving me only in my lavender-colored lingerie set with white lace. Damon turns me back to face him and his eyes widen, taking me in. I can't resist kissing him again, unbuttoning his shirt and pants with nimble fingers as I do so, and he growls as I fall back onto the bed and he steps forward, wearing only his boxers._

_He begins his assault on my neck, crouching over me on all fours as I rake my fingers through his hair. He kisses my shoulder, the top of my breast, my ribcage and stomach, progressing ever lower until his hot breath is exactly where I want him the most. I could scream in frustration when he slips one finger under the hem of my underwear, caressing my legs as he slowly removes them before tossing them aside and coming up to kiss me again. He takes my bra off too, and I'm laid bare before him, and the look in his eyes fills me with so much confidence and anticipation that I can't help but feel empowered rather than embarrassed._

_As I'm losing myself against his lips, I become aware of his fingers, tracing lightly up my thigh and across my hipbone. The first contact is sudden, and I cry out as he teases me. He swallows my moans, working his fingers faster until I have tears in my eyes, on the brink of release. I turn my head to the side, trying to catch my breath, and he takes the opportunity to scrape his teeth lightly against that goddamned spot behind my ear. I soar, completely blinded, completely defenseless, falling endlessly._

_When I open my eyes, he's shed his boxers, waiting patiently for me to come back to him. He kisses away the single tear I shed; when his lips meet mine just before he enters me, I can taste the salt._

_It's intense, that's the only way I can describe it. He's gentle, attentive, reverent as he thrusts, and I wrap my arms and legs around him, trying to pull him into me, longing to protect him from every evil in the world. I murmur incoherently into his neck, unable to form words, but the way he whispers my name tells me he understands everything I'm trying to say._

_We reach our peaks together, our gasps synchronized as his body collapses onto mine, and I think I'm delirious when I hear him speak._

_"I love you, Elena."_

_Forcing my eyes to open, I see his gaze, searching, anxious, and I realize too late that I'm not merely hallucinating from the best sex of my life. I gape at him like a fish, and he looks crestfallen as he rolls over and gets up, headed for the bathroom to clean up._

_"No," I croak, but my voice is so hoarse and cracked that he doesn't hear me. I grab his shirt, slipping it on as quickly as I can before following him, seeing him standing by the counter, bracing himself over it and staring unseeingly down into the sink._

_I come up behind him, stretching up on my toes to wrap my arms around him and press my cheek against the hard muscles in his back. _

_"Damon, look at me," I beg softly, and he turns slowly to face me, his expression guarded. "I love you, too. I'm in love with you."_

_It takes him a moment to understand before his eyes light up, and he kisses me, but this time it is tender and loving, rather than wild and passionate. His arms wrap around me, and I feel like I'm bathed in golden light, warmed by sunshine right to my very soul. We both whisper declarations of affection between kisses, laughing and giggling with the free, untroubled vitality of youth that bereavement had taken from us, now restored by love. _

_He carries me to bed, and – after a couple more rounds, of course – we fall asleep, wrapped in each other's arms, with matching contented smiles on our faces._

So, despite our disagreements, despite his stubbornness and my jealousy and all our other flaws, despite the ghost that stands between us, I love Damon, and he loves me. It's not all rainbows and roses, but love was never supposed to be easy. After everything we've endured, I know I'd go through it all over again if I had to, because Damon is worth the fight.

I know that as long as we're together, we can survive anything.

We _always_ survive.

* * *

**DAMON**

It was all Elena's idea, and I both love and hate her for it.

The anniversary of Katherine's death is four days away, and I'm standing beside Caroline Forbes in front of a near-complete memorial fountain in the town square. About three months ago, my _current_ girlfriend decided to raise funds towards building some sort of tribute to my _ex _-girlfriend, and contacted my favorite blonde Katherine-clone to co-captain the crusade. Secretly, I was proud of the way Elena fought tooth and nail to get an audience with the entire high school – I've never seen so many teens intimidated by one five-foot-six girl before.

She soothed them, telling them that suicide wasn't an answer and that there'd always be somebody to talk to.

She guilted them, describing her own limited knowledge of Katherine's true self, sharing just enough to maintain Katherine's dignity, yet open their eyes to how prejudicial they'd been, trapping her in the template they'd needed her to fit.

She encouraged them to take a stand with her and pay their last respects to Katherine in a way that any of their classmates would have deserved, had they been in her place.

She brought them to tears, and she brought them to their feet in a standing ovation when she finished.

The students went home and told their parents, and by the next day, the whole town was behind us, ready to donate or offer their assistance in any way they could. Although I resented that it took so long for them to show any remorse, Elena was grateful and kind to each and every one of them, whether they deserved it or not.

Surprisingly enough, Caroline and Elena rapidly became close friends. In the early stages of planning, Elena hadn't actually mentioned anything to me, and I was shocked when I found them in Elena's kitchen one afternoon, laughing and making popcorn like they'd been best buddies since they were in diapers. They brought me on board, though, and I'd never admit it to anybody other than Elena, but I honestly feel grateful that they did, that Katherine will be immortalized and I will finally have some closure.

Don't get me wrong – I've been getting better, slowly but surely, and time is essentially the only complete remedy for grief. Elena has been filling the void, little by little each day: every time we fight, it only proves that she cares enough about me to call me out on my faults; every night we spend together is just as amazing as the last; every kiss, and smile, and touch heals me a fraction more.

I still have days when I push her away, when my demons conquer me and tell me I'm not good enough for her and I'll only drag her down. She never backs down, though; in spite of every hurtful remark I can think to throw at her, she won't leave me on a bad day. Thankfully, they are few and far between, and always followed up by plenty of apologies, both of the conventional kind, and the kind more appropriate for the bedroom.

Alaric told me that I was lucky to have somebody like Elena in my corner, and he's never spoken truer words. She challenges me, surprises me, and gives just as good as she gets. She has accepted my past without complaint, and she has borne the weight of my despair too, sharing my burden to help me breathe easier.

_"I hope you're at peace now."_

_The words startle me as I return from my job, waiting tables at the Grill. It's late on a Friday night, and I didn't expect Elena to still be awake, so I linger by the doorway to the library to listen, wondering what she's doing._

_"Sometimes I wish I could talk to you… well, I guess that's what I'm doing. But there's so much I never understood about you, Katherine, and I guess I never will. I wish I'd been the friend that you so desperately needed. You didn't deserve to feel so alone."_

_My heart catches in my throat. If I'd ever doubted that Elena was a perfect girlfriend, I'd just been proved wrong._

_"Damon loves you, you know. I think it's important that you know that. And I'm okay with him loving you, because if he didn't, he wouldn't be the Damon I know." She takes a deep breath. "So, yes. That's it, really. I just wanted to let you know that we're going to remember you, with this fountain, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure nobody has to go through what you did ever again."_

_I slip away before Elena notices my presence, not wanting her to know I intruded on such a private moment._

_And later, when I kiss her, I thank her without words for being so strong, and accepting me completely, with all of the emotional baggage and scars of my past, all the reasons I'd given her to hate me in the past year notwithstanding._

I'm jolted back to the present when Caroline grabs my hand, squeezing tightly. I look down at her in alarm, realizing she has tears in her eyes, and it takes me a moment to notice that the tradesman is putting the final bolts in place to secure the marble post bearing a bronze plaque. _In loving memory of Katherine Pierce._ The words are simple, sweet, and sincere, and in all honesty I think Katherine would have appreciated that.

The grand revealing of the fountain is to be held on Wednesday, as well as a short memorial service for Katherine. I can't believe that only a year has passed since she died, because it feels like it has been so, so much longer.

Elena approaches us, clipboard in hand and her long hair swept back in a ponytail, looking every bit the professional in charge that she is. She gives me a knowing smile when she sees Blondie gripping onto me for dear life, and turns her attention back to whatever she was writing down.

"All good, Miss Gilbert?" one of the contractors asks, gesturing to the completed memorial.

"It's perfect. Thank you."

He nods once and then signals to his team to begin packing up, and she gives us a tentative smile.

"We did it," she tells us proudly, and I can't do anything but gaze at her in wonder.

It's the same way I look at her the day of the memorial, when she stands in front of the entire town and reads the speech that the three of us wrote together. It's a eulogy, a collection of anecdotes, a goodbye, a reminder. It's our way of ensuring that Mystic Falls won't bury the tragedy that was Katherine Pierce, but instead will learn and grow from it. Elena doesn't shed a single tear, and her voice doesn't quiver in the slightest, and her audience is completely captivated, just like the kids at the high school.

Mayor Lockwood speaks then, briefly thanking us and going on to say the standard sentiments expected at an event like this before announcing a minute of silence. Elena holds my hand through the whole rest of the service, and when a tearful Caroline presses the switch to turn the fountain on for the first time, she finally allows herself to cry.

After the ceremony, I leave Elena to chat with her aunt and duck back to the fountain, looking around quickly to check nobody's within earshot and running my fingers over the cool, inscribed metal.

"Katherine," I begin, taking a deep breath. "I forgive you. I forgive you for everything." It's all I needed to say, encompassing all that I've wanted to tell her for the past year. If she's out there, listening, I hope my forgiveness sets her free.

I return to Elena and her family, and she politely pretends not to know that I just went to talk to my dead ex-girlfriend, simply giving me a quick hug and asking if I'm ready to go. I take her home and we curl up together on her bed as I idly stroke her back.

I will never get tired of just touching her, running my fingers over her smooth skin, hearing the pulse of her heartbeat, memorizing how she feels in my arms.

"Tell me something about her."

Surprised, I consider her request for a moment. "What would you like to know?"

"I don't know. Something little, something… real."

"She loved chocolate milkshakes." The words are surprisingly easy, painless. "Anything else even remotely fattening wasn't even permitted in the house, but get between that girl and her chocolate milkshake and you had another thing coming. We used to get them to-go from the diner on Birch Street in the middle of the night. One time, I was in a shit mood because of something my dad did. She wasn't good with consolation, so instead, she dragged me out for milkshakes and talked for thirty minutes about different colors of nail varnish. Who knew that _catfight_ was a shade of purple? But that was just the way she was."

"I can believe that," Elena smiles.

"She lived for action movies. She swore me to secrecy, but if it had guns, fiery car crashes, and slow-motion explosions, she had it on DVD. She used to tell me that if we ever ran into any trouble, she'd be able to defend me with all the moves she'd picked up from fight scenes. I didn't doubt it, either, because I once saw her deck a guy in an alley for being too friendly with an intoxicated Caroline. She made me promise to keep that a secret, too."

Elena watches me carefully, compassion in her eyes.

"You can go if you want, you know," she says, softly. "I understand. If you want to be alone right now, that's okay."

"Right now? I want to be wherever you are," I tell her honestly, and she burrows into my side with a contented sigh, burying her face so I can feel the heat of her breath through my shirt.

"You're amazing," I murmur, after a few minutes of silence. "Everything you did today, everything you've done for the past year… I can never thank you enough for it."

She doesn't respond, and I brush some of her hair away from her face.

"I love you, Elena, and I know that sometimes I'm going to mess up and it'll seem like I'm not worth it anymore, but I hope in those times you'll remember that it's because I love you that I'm being an idiot."

I wait for some sort of snappy retort, a half-hearted punch, but receive nothing. Upon closer inspection, I realize that my little whirlwind has worn herself out completely after three months of intense planning and organization, and has finally succumbed to sleep.

With a smile, I lightly kiss her hair before snuggling down to sleep beside her.

* * *

Two weeks after the memorial, Stefan and I are piling boxes into the back of a moving truck.

"I shouldn't be helping you, you know," he tells me, trying to hide his smile. "You abandoned your poor baby brother on Salvatore Exodus Day last year; I was hauling furniture all by myself."

"It was all for your benefit. I knew that if I was there you'd get all teary and embarrassed."

Stefan scowls. "At least I moved out before you."

I shrug. "At least I have a girlfriend."

Stefan turns red and avoids my eyes for a moment.

"No way, Stefan Salvatore!" An almost _too_ incredulous voice comes from behind me. "You got yourself a girl in California?"

"Shut up, Elena," he mutters, but I see the look exchanged between them and my eyes widen a little more.

"What?" I demand. I know Elena, and I know her expressions, and this one is absolutely _dripping_ with juicy gossip that she's bursting to share.

"Nothing," she says airily. "Want me to make us some coffee? After all, that's kind of our thing now, isn't it?" She sets the box she was carrying on the truck, the words 'DVDs (and probably some other things)' hastily scrawled on the side in her loopy handwriting. I'd _told_ her that if we didn't keep everything labeled and sorted, we wouldn't be able to find anything on the other end, but trust her to just keeping throwing things in the wrong boxes. Now is not the time for this argument, however, nor is it the time for coffee; there are more important things on my mind.

"You know Stefan's girlfriend!" I accuse her, and she bites her lip, glancing at him expectantly.

"She's not my girlfriend!" he protests, and Elena starts giggling. It's infectious, and I love the sound, but right now I can only stare at her in disbelief.

"You knew and you didn't tell me?" I shout dramatically, trying hard to suppress my grin. "The betrayal! I'm _wounded_!"

"I'm sorry!" she gasps through her laughter. "She made me promise!"

It only takes those four words for me to put two and two together, and I smirk evilly. "Caroline Forbes. Stefan and Blondie are a _thing_."

He punches me in the shoulder and I pretend it hurts. "I'm going to get the television!" he announces as he marches inside, ignoring Elena and me who have dissolved into hysterics on the front lawn.

When we've calmed down, I wrap my arms around her, pulling her into me and pressing a kiss to the top of her head. I push a few strands of hair out of her face and kiss her gently, though it still feels as electric as it did the very first time.

She looks up at me, her brown eyes gleaming with a mixture of excitement and fear. "Are we-"

"Yes, Elena, we're getting coffee on the way," I assure her, and she laughs and punches me, playfully.

"No! I was going to say, are we really doing this?"

"We are. Don't think I'm not mad at you about the box thing, though," I add with a fake pout.

"It's okay. I promise you I know what's in there. I'll even tag everything with your precious Dymo labeler, once we get to _our_ apartment." The words are still so fresh, so good, that I ignore the jibe at my pedantry and just kiss her again.

A while back we'd both started talking about what we wanted in our futures, and we'd quickly come to the decision that we both wanted out of Mystic Falls, as it held too many bad memories for the both of us. With Alaric moving into Elena's house pending the arrival of his and Jenna's baby, and Jeremy set to attend art school in the fall, she had nothing anchoring her here, so she started looking around and sent out a few college applications, not expecting to hear much back from any of them.

When she'd been accepted to a school in Philadelphia, however, she'd been overjoyed.

We'd found our apartment in the very first place we looked: a tiny, two-bedroom, one-bathroom shoebox in a neighborhood fairly close to Elena's college. The rent was low enough that we could make it, but the building was in fairly good condition and neither of us could wait to make the place our home.

With Elena's encouragement, I'd also enrolled in some classes at a nearby community college, to brush up on my anatomy and biology in the hopes of eventually becoming a paramedic. Elena, on the other hand, is keeping her promise to Katherine and studying psychology, with a focus on adolescent counseling and family therapy. She knows it's what she wants to do, and I know she's amazing at it, so I'm behind her all the way.

Stefan returns with the television and together we close up the truck, securing the door and jumping down. He's driving the truck up for us so we can take my car, and Caroline will bring Elena's car and fly home when she visits next week.

I take one last look at my childhood home, one chapter of my life coming to an end and the next about to begin. Elena slips her warm hand into mine, leaning against me in a silent gesture of comfort.

I don't know where I'd be if she'd never come into my life, but I wouldn't be here, that's for sure. To tell the truth, I don't really care where I am, as long as Elena's beside me. She tells me often that it was my own decision – mine, and nobody else's – to move on from Katherine, to get better, to take control of my life and set it on the right path once more. I guess that is partially true, but I still couldn't have done it without her.

With her, my future's looking that much brighter.

With her, I've learned that it's okay to grieve, and it's okay to heal.

And with that last thought, as Elena and I pull out of the driveway, the final heavy, draining burden of loss is lifted from my shoulders, and I am _free_.

_**"…for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Genesis 3:19 **_

* * *

**A/N: That's all, my darlings! Hope it was everything you wanted it to be. I can't thank you enough for all the notifications and reviews I've received week after week - every single one inspires me so much more, and I'm so thankful to have discovered such an encouraging, supportive, generous fanbase. You spoil me, and I love you all for it.**

**Again, I'd like to thank Lucy for prereading, and Jenn (ElvishGrrl) and Ashleigh for allowing me to pester them with ideas and questions. This story wouldn't be what it is without their encouragement, advice, and award-worthy patience. **

**On a more serious note, I want to remind you all that suicide is never the answer. If you or a loved one are ever in need of support, organisations such as ****_beyondblue, _****_Lifeline _****and ****_Kids Helpline_**** (Australia), the ****_National Suicide Prevention Lifeline_**** (USA/Canada), ****_Papyrus_**** and ****_Samaritans_**** (UK/Ireland), and many others are right at your fingertips with information, advice, and crisis management. Don't ever hesitate to seek help.**

**Now, onto news about future writing projects - I have two stories in the serious writing stages at the moment. One is a new AU/AH story, and the other is a sequel (by popular demand) to my Christmas A2A exchange story, ****Let Your Heart Be Light****. To stick to my promise not to keep my readers waiting for long periods of time between updates, it may be a while before either of these stories are published. Though my work hours are fewer at this time, my university year commences in a couple of weeks, and I'm not yet sure how much time I will be able to devote to my writing. As for which story will be ready first, your guess is as good as mine. My inspiration to write is unpredictable, and it fluctuates between the two (in addition to others in the planning stages).**

**So, hit author alert if you want to stay in the loop regarding my future work. You can also follow me on twitter at ****_ohmyninadobreva_**** or on tumblr at ****_ninalooch_****; though I don't post excessively about my writing on these sites, I'll always be up for answering questions. **

**Thank you again for everything; you guys are the best. Take care, survive TVD, and cheer for the Aussies at Sochi!**


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